One Big Book of Advent

Last week we talked about how the story of Jesus’ coming doesn’t begin in the New Testament and doesn’t end with a baby in a manger.  The whole Bible anticipates his arrival.  The Bible is one big book of Advent!

There are whispers of the Christmas story from Genesis to Revelation.  Over these weeks, I want us to listen to several of these “whispers.”  We started in Genesis and we’ll end in Revelation at the end of the month.

The First Advent

The first mention of advent in the Bible is only three chapters in, where, after Adam and Eve sin, God promises to send a Savior who’ll defeat evil.  After they sin, God promises advent.

Genesis 3:15 says that the seed of the serpent will battle the seed of the woman and the seed of the woman will win.  This verse means that God isn’t done with humanity yet.  A descendant of Eve would come to undo the damage caused by the serpent.

It also says that the serpent will have offspring like the woman.  This doesn’t mean that humans will battle snake people!  It refers to the conflict between followers of the Lord and any human or spiritual being who follows the serpent.  Anyone who opposes God’s plan is the seed of the serpent.

This means there’s a war raging across the world between the powers of darkness and the followers of God.  We know who wins – so we don’t have to fear the outcome.  But how do we survive the conflict?  How do we make it through this cosmic battle alive and well?

Like any army, we need a general, a leader, someone who’ll direct us through the satanic minefield of this world.  We need to know what to do and what not to do.  We need orders if we want to live.  We need someone to guide us.  We need a prophet.

And this is exactly what the Lord promised to give his people in Deuteronomy 18:18.  This is the next whisper of Advent, the next indication that God will come to his people.  It tells us something of the nature of the One who’ll come, and it tells us something about us.  This whisper of advent tells us that God’s people need God’s word to live.

This morning we’ll consider why Israel needs a prophet and who is the prophet.  The main point of this text is that God’s people need God’s word to live.

Why Does Israel Need a Prophet?

To understand Deuteronomy 18:18, we need to read it in its context.  The Lord promises a prophet like Moses because he knew the Israelites would be tempted to look beyond him for guidance, even looking to demonic sources for help (18:9-14).

In these verses, the Lord is showing Israel their need for a prophet.  Veres 9 says that they’ll be tempted to “learn to imitate the detestable ways” (NIV) of the nations already in Canaan.  They will struggle to think and act like the people around them.

The Canaanites practiced all sorts of things that were “abominable” or “detestable” to the Lord.  The first thing he mentions is child sacrifice (v. 10).  That this evil practice is listed first sets the tone for what follows.  The next list of practices are horrific and evil (vv. 10b-11).

It must also be said that the list of practices here isn’t out-of-date.  As our culture becomes more and more secular, the occult is becoming more mainstream.  Just go to Barnes and Noble and see how many books they’re selling on Wicca or Tarot Card readings.  Theologian Craig Carter says that we’re living in “a temporary phase between the fall of Christendom and the rise of neopaganism.”  As Christian faith recedes, what comes next isn’t a purely rationalistic or science-based worldview.  Rather, Carter says, “what comes next is neopaganism, which may include pantheism for intellectual elites but will also include polytheism for the masses, and for many it also includes a fascination with magic, the occult, and the demonic.  The line between technology and magic…always was a bit of a blur for most people anyway.”  He says that C. S. Lewis was onto this seventy years ago with his science-fiction novel, That Hideous Strength.[1]

People alienated from the living God will often turn to the dark arts.  Why?  It’s evil and wrong but it makes sense if you think about it.  God made us to know him and find our hope and safety in him.  Those who don’t know him must therefore look for hope and safety somewhere.  Old Testament scholar Christopher Wright says it this way:

“It is a universal human desire to know the unknown, to have some preview of the future, to get guidance for decisions, to exercise control over others, to harm others and ward off the harm others may aim at oneself.”[2]

It’s easy to label those who do these overtly evil things as evil.  But in what ways are you, Christian, doing the same things but in different ways?  Maybe you’re addicted to the news cycle because you can’t stand not knowing what’s going on?  Maybe you gossip and slander because fear drives you to control or harm others?  Maybe you seek counsel from ungodly and pagan YouTubers or friends and family before your pastors or fellow church members?  Maybe you’re intentionally deceitful in order to control others?

Those who don’t know the Lord must seek help and guidance from somewhere because God made us as dependent creatures.  The Lord knows that Israel needs direction and that they’ll be tempted to fit in with the nations already in Canaan.  So he warns them about seeking counsel apart from the Lord.

So why does Israel need a prophet?  Because Moses will die but the battle between the two seeds won’t.  It’ll rage on.  God’s people therefore need someone to expose his lies and schemes, to lead and guide them.  They’re about to enter a culture full of people who don’t know God and are doing things he hates.  How will they live and flourish?

They’ll need a prophet.  Why do they need a prophet?  Because God’s people need God’s word to live.

Who Is the Prophet?

So who is the prophet?  Verses 15 and 18 say that the prophet will be like Moses and will come from “among Moses’ brothers,” meaning that he’ll be an Israelite.  This means that Mohammed can’t be God’s last and most authoritative prophet because he wasn’t an Israelite.

So who’s the prophet?  At the end of Deuteronomy, Moses dies and the editor of the book says that Joshua was leading the people faithfully (34:9).  But then it says that no prophet like Moses has come (vv. 10-12).  Joshua is doing a great job, but he’s not the promised prophet.  Who is?

The Lord sent dozens of prophets to his people over the next thousand years, from Samuel to Isaiah to Daniel to Malachi.  They spoke God’s word to God’s people.  But not once is a prophet said to be this “prophet like Moses.”  So who is he?  Did he ever come?

In John chapter 1, it says that John the Baptist was preaching that Jesus was God’s Son.  Interestingly, people asked him if he was the Messiah and he said he wasn’t.  So they asked him, “What then?  Are you Elijah?”  He said, “I am not.”  Then they asked him, “Are you the Prophet?”  And he said, “No” (1:19-25).

Then at the end of the chapter, Jesus goes to Galilee and calls Philip to follow him and Philip goes and tells Nathanael, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth” (1:45).

For year after year, God’s people waited for the prophet like Moses to come.  But for generations he did not come.  Until finally, in an obscure region of the Roman Empire, Philip says, “We have found him!”  At long last, the advent of the prophet like Moses!

Jesus Like Moses

Jesus is the prophet like Moses.  How is he like Moses?  How is he a prophet?

He’s like Moses in that he was sent into a specific situation of need to bring God’s word to God’s people and to confront the political authorities.  He predicted events beforehand and interpreted them afterwards.  He interceded for his people and loved them to the point of death, like Moses, dying before he saw the full fruition of his work.

Like Moses, Jesus was sent out into the wilderness after crossing through the water and was tempted by the evil one to disobey God.  Like Moses, Jesus gave his people God’s law (Matt. 5:1ff), redeemed his people by blood, “tabernacled” among them so that he could initiate a new exodus (Lk. 9:31).

Peter understood this, saying in one of his early sermons that Jesus was this “prophet like Moses” and that “all the prophets” pointed forward to him (Acts 3:22-24).

Jesus the Prophet

How is Jesus a prophet?  A prophet in the Bible is someone who proclaims God’s word.  Jesus said that he had to go preach in all the towns “for that is why I came out” (Mk. 1:38).  Jesus was sent to preach God’s word about God’s kingdom.

This is why, at the Transfiguration, the Father says, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (Mk. 9:7).  Jesus came to tell us God’s word.  As Hebrews says, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (1:1-2).

Why should we listen to him?  Because he’s God’s Son, the image of the invisible God, the creator and sustainer of all things.  “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power” (1:3).

We should listen to Jesus because Jesus is God.  To say it another way, Jesus brought God’s word and is God’s word.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:1, 14).

To ignore Jesus is to ignore God.  To dismiss Jesus’ word is to dismiss God’s word.

Jesus’ Disciples Listen to His Word

This means that Jesus’ disciples are those who listen to his word.  By “listen” I mean “obey.”  Merely hearing words with our ears isn’t what he’s after.  He’s after heart-level hearing, the kind of hearing that changes your life.

This is why part of the Great Commission is teaching Jesus’ people “to observe all that he has commanded us” (Mt. 28:20).  Jesus says that his followers obey his commands.

Obedience is often minimized because we’re saved by grace.  But God’s grace is meant to literally change us.

Jesus saves his people by grace and then expects them to listen and obey.  The gospel isn’t, “I’ve got Jesus therefore I’m good,” with nothing required of you.  The word of God is designed to cut us like a two-edged sword (Heb. 4:12).  If God’s word never wounds you, you aren’t listening carefully enough.

It’s easy to hear the word and think, “Thank God for Jesus because I thought I was going to have to do something there for a second!”  We think, “Thank God Jesus paid it all!”  But we forget the next phrase of the hymn, “All to him I owe.”

You can’t use believing in Jesus as an excuse for disobeying God.  God didn’t send his Son to get killed so we could disobey him.  “Jesus paid it all” so that we can give our all to him.

What Commands Do You Need to Obey?

Where is God’s word wounding you?  Which of Jesus’ words do you need to obey?

What about Jesus’ commands to love our enemies (Mt. 5:44), or to do whatever we have to do to kill lust in our lives (5:27ff), or to lay up treasures in heaven instead of storing them up on earth (6:19ff), to not be anxious (6:25ff), to treat others the way you want to be treated (7:12), or perhaps the most basic command of all, “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk. 1:15)?

What about all the “one another” commands meant to shape our life together as a church:

“Forgive one another” (Eph. 4:32).

“Encourage one another” (1 Thess. 5:11).

“Show hospitality to one another without grumbling” (1 Pet. 4:9).

“Confess your sins to one another” (Jas. 5:16).

“Pray for one another” (Jas. 5:16).

“Love one another” (Jn. 13:34).

To put my main point more precisely, God’s people need to obey God’s word to live.  God wants to give his people his word because he loves them and wants them to live.  We must obey to live in the fullness and power and peace that Jesus purchased for us on the cross.

The Obedient Dies for the Disobedient

Jesus was more than Moses, as Hebrews says.  He is “worthy of more glory than Moses” because he’s the builder of the house and not the house itself.  Moses was faithful as a servant, but Jesus is faithful as a Son (3:1-6).  Jesus is like Moses and greater than Moses.

Jesus is the prophet like Moses, but greater than Moses because, unlike Moses, he perfectly obeyed God.  Deuteronomy 18:18 says that the prophet will “speak to them all that I command him.”  The prophet will perfectly say what he’s told to say.  He’ll obey fully.

This means that Jesus, the prophet like Moses, never asks us to do what he himself hasn’t done.  He obeyed his Father even when it cost him his life.  We follow someone who knows what obedience costs.

Jesus never did anything wrong and always did everything right and the powers that be killed him for it.  Why would he allow that?  Because he was paying the price we owe.  Deuteronomy 18:19 says that whoever doesn’t listen to God’s word will be held accountable.  We haven’t listened or obeyed, so we’re accountable.  We deserve judgment.

But in mercy, God sends his Word, his Son, to not only speak to us but also to die for us.  The best sermon he ever preached was him on the cross for the sins of the world.  Even the Roman centurion knew that something strange and wonderful was happening as Jesus hung there dying.

The innocent aren’t supposed to die for the guilty, but Jesus did.  God sent his Son to die for people who think obeying God isn’t that important, people convinced they can do whatever they want and God will just sweep it under the rug.  On the cross, the obedient died for the disobedient.

Jesus came as the prophet like Moses because God’s people haven’t obeyed God’s word.  So he obeyed in their place and took the punishment of their disobedience for them.  He rose from the dead signaling that the Father perfectly accepted his work so that now anyone who turns to him and away from their sin will be counted as righteous in him and given the Spirit so that they can finally start obeying the Lord because they want to not because they have to.

Jesus is the promised prophet, bringing us God’s word.  Are you listening to him?  Where is his word wounding you?  Which of his words do you need to obey?

[1]Craig A. Carter, Contemplating God with the Great Tradition: Recovering Trinitarian Classical Theism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021, 237-8 and note 2.

[2]Christopher J. H. Wright, Deuteronomy, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), 216.

The Whole Bible is about Advent

This time of year is sometimes called “Advent,” from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming” or “arrival.”  Advent has historically been observed during the four Sundays before Christmas as a time to reflect on Jesus’ coming into the world.

The Bible doesn’t command Christians or churches to observe Advent, or the liturgical calendar in general.  The Roman Catholic Church does and some Protestants do and some don’t.  The emphasis of the New Testament is on weekly rhythms, not yearly rhythms, with the weekly Lord’s Day gathering of the church the only event we’re commanded to observe.

During Advent, churches might study Luke or Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth or the prophecies about the coming Messiah in Isaiah in order to focus on the coming, or advent, of the Son of God into human history.

But the Bible is one big book of Advent!  The story of Jesus’ coming doesn’t begin in the New Testament and doesn’t end with a baby in a manger.  The whole Bible anticipates the arrival of a great king who’ll bring peace and justice to a dark and dying world.

There are whispers of the Christmas story from Genesis to Revelation.  Over the next several weeks, I want us to listen to several of these “whispers.”  We’ll start in Genesis today and end in Revelation at the end of the month.

The story of the whole Bible is that God has come, that God has arrived, to be with us!  My hope and prayer is that our hearts will be captured by the wonder and beauty of God’s advent.  What I want more than anything is for his advent to happen in your heart, for him to come to you.  He has come and he will come again, but has he come into your heart?

The First Advent

The first mention of advent in the Bible is only three chapters in.  God created everything out of nothing, made man and woman in his image, giving them his presence and his good word, only to see them rebel against him and follow the serpent.

God’s response to Adam and Eve’s sin is judgment, but it’s also advent.  There are serious consequences for their sin, but there are also serious promises about their salvation.  After they sin, God promises to send a Savior who’ll defeat evil.  After they sin, God promises advent.  He promises Christmas.  He promises Jesus.

Let’s look at the promise of Advent in Genesis 3:15.  In this verse, we see that two seeds will battle (v. 15a) but one seed will win (v. 15b).

Two Seeds Will Battle

After the Lord confronts Adam and Eve about their sin, he turns his attention to the serpent in verses 14-15.  The Lord’s judgment on the serpent is that he’ll be lowered to his belly and there will be enmity between him and the woman and between his offspring and her offspring.  Because of his sin, the serpent will crawl and be crushed.

The serpent here is of course more than a mere snake.  Satan himself took the form of this serpent in the garden.  In Revelation, Satan is called “that ancient serpent” (12:9, 20:2).  When God curses the serpent (v. 14), he’s not merely cursing snakes.  He’s cursing Satan himself.

Most sane people are afraid of snakes.  Even Indiana Jones hated snakes!  There’s a reason why stories like Harry Potter use snakes to personify evil.  John Calvin said, “It is regarded…that some take pleasure in them; and as often as the sight of a serpent inspires us with horror, the memory of our fall is renewed.”[1]

This verse isn’t meant to tell us why we hate snakes.  But the universal dislike of snakes is meant to point to a deeper reality, namely, that there’s an ongoing conflict between good and evil, between Satan and God, and between the children of Satan and the children of God.

It says that the Lord will put “enmity” between the serpent and the woman and between their offspring.  This word is used elsewhere to describe the hostility of nations at war (Ezek. 25:15, 35:5) and the level of rage that results in murder (Num. 35:21).  The language suggests a violent life and death struggle.  This is a deep antagonism that leads to violence.

A Struggle of the Species[2]

The struggle is initially between the serpent and the woman, but as the second phrase of the verse says the struggle will spread to their kids.  There’s going to be a lifelong and vicious struggle between these families.

The serpent wins the first battle when Cain kills Abel (4:7-8).  The strife continues with Noah’s sons (9:24-27) and is why the Patriarchs have an uneasy coexistence in Canaan and Egypt.  The full fury of this struggle is seen in Pharaoh’s murdering of the Hebrew children and when Pharaoh’s firstborn son dies.

You can trace the line of the serpent down through those who’re cursed.  God curses the serpent (3:14), Cain (4:11), Noah’s grandson Canaan (9:25), and those who oppose Abram (12:3).  The seed of the serpent are those cursed like their father the serpent.

Genesis 3:15 sets the stage for the whole Bible.  There will be war.  The two sides are the two seeds.  It’s the seed of the serpent versus the seed of the woman.

We can follow this seed versus seed theme into the New Testament.  John the Baptist calls the Pharisees a “brood of vipers!” (Mt. 3:7)  They’re the seed of the serpent.  Jesus says to his enemies, “You are of your father the devil” (Jn. 8:44).  And in 1 John 3, the apostle John says there are two kinds of people, “children of God” and “children of the devil,” and the way to know the difference is to see which one’s love righteousness and love the church.  He says, “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother” (vv. 8-10).

Genesis 3:15 establishes a pattern that we see throughout the Bible: Cain versus Abel, Joseph versus his brothers, Pharoah versus Israel, David versus Goliath.  There’s always been conflict between people who belong to God and people who don’t belong to God.

Since Genesis 3:15, humanity is divided into two communities: the elect, who love God, and the reprobate, who love self (Jn. 8:31-32, 44; 1 Jn. 3:8ff).  Every person who’s ever lived is either of the seed of the woman or of the seed of the serpent.  This begs an all-important question: whose seed are you?

One of the reasons we take baptism and church membership so seriously is because God has always been careful to distinguish between those who’re his and those who’re not.  There’s always been a sharp and bright dividing line between those who love God and those who don’t.

Conflict Evidence of Mercy

Did you notice who initiated this conflict?  Instead of giving them over to Satan, God started a process of defeating Satan.

The conflict between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent is evidence of God’s mercy.  Moses wants us to feel the surprise of what’s happening here.  God said they’d die if they ate the fruit, but they didn’t die.  Instead, there’s a conflict with the serpent.  This means that Adam and Eve haven’t gone over to the serpent’s side.  They’re going to oppose him rather than join him.

These are words of hope to Adam and Eve.  They’ll live and they’ll fight evil.  They’re not surrendered to Satan.

One Seed Will Win

The second half of Genesis 3:15 tells us that the war between the two seeds won’t go on forever.  One seed will win – the seed of the woman will defeat the seed of the serpent!

Notice that the pronouns are singular, “he will bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”  The word for “offspring/seed” in the first part of the verse can be singular or collective, meaning that it can refer to someone’s kid or kids.  But when Jewish scholars translated the Old Testament into Greek in 250 BC, they translated the word “offspring” as a single individual, “he will crush your head.”  These Jewish translators understood “seed” as a reference to a future individual who’d defeat the serpent.

This individual will be born of a woman and will “bruise” (or “strike”) the head of the serpent while the serpent “bruises” (or “strikes”) his heel.  “Bruise” translates the same Hebrew word.  In this decisive battle, there will be parallel “strikes.”  But the location of the “strike” is what determines the winner.  The seed of the woman will strike the head of the serpent, while the serpent will strike his heel.  One is a mortal injury, one is not.  The seed of the woman will be injured, but the serpent will die!  The serpent’s existence will come to a violent end.

Verse 15 is the ultimate spoiler.  The beginning of the Bible tells us what’ll happen in the end.  God’s people never have to wonder whether evil will ultimately win.  The serpent will die!

The serpent was instrumental in bringing the woman down, so in turn the woman will bring down the serpent through her seed.  As Arthur Pink says, “By woman had come sin, by woman should come the Saviour.  By woman had come the curse, by woman should come Him who would bear and remove the curse.  By woman Paradise was lost, yet by woman should be born the One who should regain it.”[3]

Genesis 3:15 contains judgment for the serpent and a promise for mankind.  God folds mercy into the middle of judgment.  This is why this verse is often called the protoevangelium, or the “first gospel.”  This is the first hint that God would send a Savior for mankind.

Who is the Seed? 

But verse 15 leaves us hanging: who’s the seed?  Who’ll crush the serpent?  The purpose of this verse isn’t to answer the question but to ask it.  The rest of the Bible gives the answer.

The New Testament tells us that Satan has been destroyed and will be destroyed.  Hebrews says that Jesus destroyed the devil through his death (2:14-15), and that through Jesus’ death God rescued those enslaved to the fear of death.

Then in Revelation we see Satan’s final demise: “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (20:10).

Jesus Lifted Up Like a Serpent

But there’s more.  Jesus draws a connection between the serpent of Genesis 3:15 and himself in John 3.  He said: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (vv. 14-15).

He’s referring to the time when God sent snakes into Israel’s camp because of their sin (Num. 21:4-9).  Many people were bitten and died and the people asked Moses to pray for the Lord to stop the snakes.  The Lord told Moses to make a serpent and put it on a pole and when people looked at it they’d live.

The snakes were a result of sin, and snakes are a perfect representation of sin because it was a serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to sin in the Garden.

The Lord tells Moses to lift up a serpent above the people because of their sin.  But then Moses doesn’t lift up an actual serpent, but a likeness of a serpent (a bronze serpent, Num. 21:9).  This is important because, though Jesus became like us, he was without sin.  As Paul says, “God…(sent) his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin” (Rom. 8:3).  And, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).

The Lord could’ve told Moses to raise up any animal he wanted but he chose the serpent because the serpent symbolizes sin.  Moses could’ve lifted up a real serpent but instead he lifted up a bronze serpent, or a likeness of a serpent.  This was to foreshadow Jesus being lifted up as one who “was made to be sin” for us.  On the cross, Jesus was lifted up in the likeness of the serpent in the wilderness.  He was lifted up like the serpent.  On the cross, he became sin for his people.

Jesus the Antidote

But why?  Because the only way Jesus could save people dying from the serpent’s venom was to be bit by the serpent himself.  Jesus took our sin on himself, took our snake bite, so that we could live.  This is the only way Jesus could provide an antidote to the serpent’s venom.

What’s an antidote?  An antidote is produced when venom is injected into an animal and then the antibodies are extracted from the animal’s blood in order to make antivenoms or antidotes that can be used to counteract venomous bites from snakes or spiders.

On the cross, the venom of our sin was injected into Jesus.  The serpent bit him, so to speak.  He didn’t have any toxins of sin until our sin was put in him.  Because our sin was put in him, saving antibodies could be “extracted” from his blood and used to cure anyone who’s dying from the serpent’s venom.

What does all this mean?  It means that at the very beginning of the Bible, God promised to send someone who’d be the antidote to the serpent’s venom.  Since Jesus is the One promised, he’s the antidote.  His coming is the advent of the antidote.

But how do you get the antidote?  Remember what Jesus said: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn. 3:14-15).

Like the bronze snake on the pole that Moses lifted up, Jesus was lifted up on a cross.  All the dying Israelites had to do was look to that pole and they’d live.  No matter how bad their bite was or how many times they’d been bitten or how sick they were, if they looked at the serpent on the pole they’d live.

In the same way, everyone dying from the serpent’s venomous bite who looks to Jesus alone for salvation will live.  This is how the seed of the woman wins: Jesus becomes sin, takes our venom, dies, and then defeats death and the devil by rising from the dead so that everyone who looks to him in faith and turns away from their sin will become a child of God.

This is what Advent is all about, God coming into the world to save sinners.  Advent has happened and will happen again when Jesus returns, but has it happened in your heart?  Has Jesus come to you?  Are you looking to him?  Which seed are you?  Are you a child of God or a child of the devil?

[1]Quoted in R. Kent Hughes, Genesis: Beginning and Blessing, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 85.

[2]This phrase from Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), 90.

[3]Arthur W. Pink, Gleanings in Genesis (Chicago: Moody Press, 1922), 42.

A Long Journey Comes to an End

Today we come to the end of our study of Exodus.  We’ve spent thirty-seven weeks with the Israelites as they began their journey from slavery to freedom.  We’ve learned a lot about a lot!  Here are some of the highpoints, or big takeaways, from our study of Exodus:

We’ve learned about God’s unique identity as the “I am who I am” (3:13), the self-existent and self-sustaining nature of God.  We’ve learned that Israel is God’s firstborn son (4:22), how they fail their Father, and how God’s true Son Jesus Christ succeeds where they failed.  We’ve learned about redemption through the blood of a spotless lamb, about how God’s judgment is averted through substitutionary sacrifice (12:12-13).  We’ve learned about his love for his glory above all things (14:4, 30-31; “You shall know that I am the Lord” said fourteen times in first half of the book).

We’ve learned about God’s covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai, where he gave them his law and said that they’d reflect him to the nations (19:4-6).  We learned that Israel was redeemed before they were given the Law (20:1-3), and that the Ten Commandments, or “Ten Words,” are parallel to the ten words (“and God said”) of creation in Genesis 1, so that the Ten Commandments are more than rules but God creating a new nation.  We learned that the law is given to reveal the character of God, to teach Israel how to image God, and to reveal our sin and need for a Savior.  We learned that the law is about how God’s people relate to God and to each other, about worship and social justice, about loving God and loving neighbors.  We learned that God cares for the vulnerable, for the poor, orphan, widow, and immigrant, that helping the vulnerable isn’t about charity but about justice or doing what’s right in God’s eyes (22:21-24).

We’ve learned that when Moses asks to see God’s glory, God proclaims his goodness (33:18-19) and that God’s deepest heart is love for people who don’t deserve it (34:6-7),

Love seen in that, after a serious failure on Israel’s part – when they made the golden calf, Moses intercedes for them, they repent, and the Lord spares them and renews his covenant with them.  The Lord restores the relationship and tells them to proceed with building the Tabernacle.

This brings us to the end of the book, chapter 40.  Most of this chapter describes God’s command to Moses to build the tabernacle and Moses obeying and building the tabernacle.  Then at the very end of the chapter, the climax of the book, the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle (v. 34).

Why is this so important?  Why is this simple sentence (v. 34) so climatic?  To answer that we need to understand the storyline of the Bible.  What I want to do this morning is to spend less time looking at the trees of this chapter and more time zooming out and looking at the forest of how Exodus fits into the storyline of the whole Bible.

As we come to the end of Exodus, I want us to address three questions: How did we get here?  What happens here?  And where do we go from here?

How Did We Get Here?

First, how did we get here?  Let’s start in Genesis 1 where God created the cosmos as the house where he’d live with humanity.  After his house was polluted with sin, he withdrew his presence and kept his distance, staying mostly in heaven.  But sin didn’t ruin his plan.  He would yet again live with his people on the earth.

He calls a man named Abraham and blesses him and tells him that his descendants will be his people and live in his place.  But Abraham’s descendants end up in slavery in Egypt.  They become a great people but they’re in the wrong place.

Enter Moses.  God calls Moses to liberate his enslaved people and lead them to their promised land.  After he leads them out of Egypt, they come to Mount Sinai where God gives them the law and the tabernacle – the place where God would live with his people again.

The tabernacle is massively important in Exodus, taking up thirteen of forty chapters.  Why?  Because, as Jared touched on last week, the tabernacle was a reconstruction of the Garden of Eden.  It contained gold, precious jewels, and cherubim.  It was where God would live with his people on the earth again.

The Lord made this clear in his instructions for building the tabernacle.  He said, “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst” (25:8).  And, “I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God.  And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them.  I am the Lord their God” (29:45-46).  The Lord rescued Israel so that he could live with Israel.  Redemption was for communion.

The presence of the Lord with his people is the issue that drives the people to Aaron (32:1).  It’s not dissatisfaction with the Lord or with Moses but their need for someone to lead them into the Promised Land.  They aren’t faulted for desiring a discernible presence to lead them.  Their mistake was in seeking that presence apart from the Lord and in direct violation of his law.

The irony is that while they’re seeking the presence of the Lord in a way he hasn’t prescribed, the Lord is giving Moses instructions for the tabernacle.  The Lord wanted his people to have his discernible presence in their midst.  This is why he gave them the tabernacle.  But in demanding that Aaron make them gods, they’re rejecting the Lord.

In response to their sin, the Lord threatens to destroy them, but Moses intercedes for them and the Lord spares them.  The Lord says that, though he’s sparing their lives, he won’t be among them when they go to the Promised Land (33:3).

Israel’s response to this reveals how important the Lord’s presence is in their lives (33:4-6).  The Lord tells Israel to take off what they used to betray him, so they did, thus renouncing their sin.

After they sinned, Moses interceded and they repented, and God renewed his covenant with them (34:10).  One of the reason we know they repented is because of their lavish giving toward the construction of the tabernacle (36:3-6).

What the people once gave for the calf they now gave to the Lord.  God’s grace had changed their hearts, and grace opened up their hands.  As Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matt. 6:21).  Our money follows our hearts.  Hearts changed by grace lead to hands opened to give.

In response to the Lord’s grace, Israel carefully obeys the Lord’s instructions for the tabernacle (chs. 35-39).  The contrast with the calf incident is striking.  Where there had been disobedience, now there’s obedience.  Grace opens our hands and makes us want to obey.

So how did we get to chapter 40?  We got here by grace.  The Lord redeemed his people and yet they rejected him.  After mediator Moses intercedes for them, the Lord spares them and they repent and the Lord renews the relationship.

What Happens Here?

We get to chapter 40 by grace, and as we see in verse 34, grace is followed by glory.  What happens here is simple: the Lord moves in with his people.

Throughout Exodus, the “cloud” is a manifestation of the Lord’s presence (13:21-22; 14:19, 24; 16:10; 19:9, 16; 24:15-16, 18; 33:9; 34:4).  The Lord’s presence coming into the tabernacle means that Israel is completely restored to the Lord, the practical evidence that he was restoring the covenant between them (34:10).

The Lord’s presence is everything for Israel.  It’s what makes them distinct among the nations (33:16), and what enables them to fulfill their mission to be a priestly kingdom and holy nation (19:4-6).  Without the Lord’s presence, Israel will be like every other nation and unable to extend God’s blessing to all nations.  Without the Lord’s presence, Israel would be spiritually dead.

The Lord’s presence is also what will lead them on their journey (vv. 36-37).  As Old Testament scholar Alec Motyer says, “Guidance was not something they ‘looked for’ but something they waited for.”[1]  They didn’t have to anxiously wonder what to do next.  All they had to do was wait and watch, keeping their eyes fixed on the Lord.

Is this how you approach guidance from the Lord?  How do you approach decision-making?  There are certainly times when we need to make a decision and do something rather than nothing.  But there are also many other times when we simply need to wait and let the Lord work things out.  Knowing when to do what often comes after seeking counsel from godly brothers or sisters.

The Lord’s presence comes back into his people’s lives to guide them but mostly to fulfill the purpose of creation.  The Lord was coming to live with his people again.  The cloud over Sinai was moving over to the tabernacle.  On Sinai the Lord lived separate from his people, but through the tabernacle he would live in the middle of them.

A Crisis

But there’s a problem.  One scholar says that “Exodus ends with a crisis.”[2]  What’s the crisis?  Verse 35 says that Moses can’t enter the tabernacle once the Lord’s presence fills it.

Israel has repented, the covenant is restored, the tabernacle is built, and the glory of the Lord comes into the midst of the people.  But despite all that’s gone right, this verse hints that something’s still wrong.

On Sinai, Moses was able to go into the cloud of the Lord’s presence (24:15-18), but only after being invited (v. 12).  This means that entering the glorious presence of the Lord is a privilege and only granted to those who’re called.  Again Motyer says, “The Lord is sovereignly in charge of his own front door.”[3]

Why didn’t the Lord let Moses in at the end of chapter 40?  He’s reintroducing the problem of sin, showing us that the Lord still can’t dwell directly among his people.  The restoration of God and man in Exodus is real, but only partial, as a level of separation still exists.

Exodus shows us shadows of what’ll be fulfilled later.  The Bible ends with God living with his people on the earth (Rev. 21:2-4).  The imagery here of a bride and groom suggests a level of intimacy that we don’t see in Exodus.  This imagery takes us back to the Garden, the original tabernacle, where the Lord lived with Adam and Eve.

But how do we get from Exodus 40 to Revelation 21, from Moses not being able to enter the Lord’s presence to all God’s people living in his intimate presence?

Where Do We Go From Here?

Another way to ask it is, “Where do we go from Exodus 40?”  We go to Jesus.  John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  John refers to the tabernacle, saying, “the Word tabernacled among his people,” revealing the glory of God.

Where do we most fully see the glory of God in Christ?  In his death (Jn. 17:1).  It’s through the death of Jesus that the barrier between God and humanity is removed.  When Jesus dies, the veil in the temple is torn from top to bottom (Mt. 27:51).  The barrier guarding the Holy of Holies is removed, restoring access to God that hasn’t been possible since Genesis 3.

We Go on Mission

From Exodus 40, we go to Jesus who brings us into the glory cloud through his death on the cross for our sins.  But when we go to Jesus something else happens, we’re called to go with him on his mission in the world.

Anglican pastor and scholar Ross Blackburn wrote a great book on “The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus” where he argues that the main point of Exodus is that the Lord wants to be known among the nations.  He closes his book by drawing out several implications for the church’s mission based on Exodus, and I want to close by giving them to you.

First, he says that Exodus shows us that “mission is tied to community.”[4]  He says that the Great Commission is too often interpreted individualistically and apart from its Old Testament context.  The way the Lord wanted Israel to carry out her mission was through their life together in his presence.  This is why he gave them his law, which Jesus summarized as loving God and loving neighbor (Mt. 22:37-40).

Yes, Jesus commands us to make disciples (Mt. 28:19), but he also says that the way people will know that we’re his disciples is by our love for one another.  John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  Our mission is therefore collective and congregational.  Are we living together in a way that makes the world take notice?

The second thing Blackburn points out is the cost of mission.  Exodus shows us that the Lord brings his people through trials in order to make them the priestly kingdom and holy nation they’re called to be.  This means we don’t view difficulties as a sign of God’s judgment, but rather as a way the Lord is strengthening us.

The American church struggles with this because one of the biggest idols in our country is comfort.  In his biography of John Newton, Charles Simeon, and William Wilberforce, John Piper says this:

“A typical emotional response to trouble in the church is to think, If that’s the way they feel about me, then I’ll just find another church.  We see very few healthy, happy examples today whose lives spell out in flesh and blood the rugged words, ‘Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds’ (James 1:2). When historians list the character traits of America in the last third of the twentieth century, commitment, constancy, tenacity, endurance, patience, resolve, and perseverance will not be on the list. The list will begin with an all-consuming interest in self-esteem.  It will be followed by the subheadings of self-assertiveness, self-enhancement, and self-realization.  And if we think that we are not children of our times, let us simply test ourselves to see how we respond when people reject our ideas or spurn our good efforts or misconstrue our best intentions.”[5]

Exodus reminds us that the Lord forges character through trial, and that the Lord’s work takes time.  We therefore take the long view, patiently waiting for what the Lord will do in our lives, our families, and our church over years, not weeks.

Finally, Blackburn reminds us that missions is fueled by knowing God’s glory in grace and judgement.  The Lord reveals himself through judgment at the Red Sea and through grace at Mount Sinai.  We have to keep both together or we end up making a god in our image rather than worshipping the God who made us in his image.

Blackburn says that Israel most fundamentally knew the Lord as Redeemer, the God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt.  If they hadn’t known the Lord as Savior, they wouldn’t have known him at all.

When we forget this, the mission of the church is suffocated because only people who understand their need for a redeemer will love others.  This is what we find in the Gospels.  For example, in Matthew 9, it says, “As Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.  And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’  But when he heard it, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  Go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’”

As Blackburn says, “Self-righteousness and despising others go hand in hand.  To the extent that the people of God forget that we are sinners saved by grace is the extent that we will fail to extend grace to others.  Faithful mission becomes possible when God’s people embrace the Lord as redeemer.”[6]

Saved From Something and For Something

Exodus teaches us that we’re saved from something and for something.  We’re called out of slavery and death and into a life of worship and mission.  We’re given his word and a mission to extend his blessing to the world.  Since Jesus rescued us, we have a desire to rescue others.

Those brought into the glory cloud by the blood of Christ are sent out to the neighborhoods and the nations with his word and Spirit.  If you’ve tasted the goodness of the Lord, you’ll want others to taste it too.

Have you gone to Jesus?  Are you on mission with Jesus?  Are you pursuing the mission in community?  Have you counted the cost?  Are you aware of your need for a Redeemer?

[1]J. A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2005), 325.

[2]L. Michael Morales, Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption, Essential Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. Benjamin L. Gladd (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), 91.

[3]Motyer, 324.

[4]W. Ross Blackburn, The God Who Makes Himself Known: The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus, New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 210.

[5]Quoted in ibid., 211-2.

[6]Ibid., 213.

Symmetry and Balance

The best art and writing and film and food presentation and home décor and landscaping and architecture has symmetry and balance.  There are proper proportions, not too much or too little of any one thing.  There’s diversity but not chaos.  Balance is often the key to beauty.

The Bible is full of symmetry and balance.  The Bible says a lot about a lot, but there are proper proportions.  The main things get the main emphasis.  Minor things are minor and major things are major.  There’s an evenness to how the Bible presents key ideas.  There’s a beautiful balance.

One example of what I’m talking about are the letters of Paul.  Most of his letters can be divided in half, with the first half focused on what God has done in Jesus and the second half focused on how we should live in light of what God has done in Jesus.  First, theology, then application.  Doctrine then devotion.  Orthodoxy then orthopraxy.

This kind of symmetry is all over the Bible.  Jesus’ teaching is full of instruction about God and his kingdom and application about how his followers should live in light of God and his kingdom.  He teaches us to love God and love our neighbor.  The Bible is a balanced book.

Compassion then Commands

In Exodus 34, we see yet more symmetry and balance.  The first 10 verses highlight God’s compassion to Israel while the last 25 verses highlight God’s commands for Israel.  Compassion first, then commands.  That’s the biblical rhythm.  Like a beautifully choreographed dance, grace is the lead partner and obedience joyfully follows.

Getting the balance right is crucial to understanding what it means to be a Christian.  Some people think that they can live however they want because God’s grace covers them.  That’s called antinomianism, or “no law.”  Other people think they have to keep all the rules or God’s grace won’t cover them.  That’s called legalism.  Both are attempts to cover up your shame and neither will bring you the peace and life you’re looking for.

The way to life is through grace-filled obedience.  Grace comes first, but when it comes, it brings obedience with it.  When God saves us, he gives us faith and repentance.  He shows us the beauty of Jesus and gives us power to follow him.  He fills us with grace and motivates us to obey.

Grace-filled obedience is what Exodus 34 is about.  Last week, we saw that God’s deepest heart overflows with love for people who don’t deserve it (vv. 6-7).  This week we’ll see that God’s love doesn’t nullify his commands.  There’s a happy marriage between God’s grace and his people’s obedience, and what God has brought together we must not separate.

As we come to Exodus 34:10-35, I want us to approach this text with three questions.  First, where’s the grace (v. 10)?  Second, why the obedience (vv. 11-28)?  And third, what keeps them together (vv. 29-35)?  In this text, we see a beautiful symmetry between God’s grace and our response to his grace, or a grace-filled obedience.

Where’s the Grace?

First, where’s the grace (v. 10)?  The first thing the Lord says to Moses is, “I am making a covenant.”  This is amazing news for Israel and makes it explicit what the Lord is doing.  He’s making, or re-making, the covenant he made with them when Moses came down the mountain the first time (24:7-8).

This is not a new covenant.  The Lord has already said in verse 1 that he’ll be writing the same words on the second set of tablets that he wrote on the first.  The ten sample commandments in verses 14-26 are repetitions of commands already given back in chapter 23.  And the Lord says he’ll write on the tablets the “words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments” (v. 28).  This is a reinstitution and restoration, not a revision.

It says he’s “making a covenant.”  He’s not reminding Israel of the covenant, he’s remaking or fixing what they broke.  He’s taking the responsibility on himself to restore and repair the broken relationship between him and Israel.

These opening words are full of so much grace.  He’s going beyond what was expected, giving Israel what they don’t deserve.  The grace here is in the fact that God is willing to remake what Israel broke.

It’d be like if your spouse or friend did something to hurt you and instead of waiting on them to make things right, you went to them and made things right.  The Lord is the betrayed spouse who’s moving back toward the betrayer to repair what they broke.

“I Will Do Marvels”

But there’s even more grace in this verse.  The rest of the verse says that the Lord will do amazing things through his people so that all the earth can see his glory in them.

The vocabulary of “marvels” reminds us of the signs and wonders he did in Egypt with the plagues, but here he’s referring to the “wonders” he’ll do to give Israel the Promised Land (v. 11).  The grace here is that he’ll conquer their enemies and give them a home.

Back in 15:11, after the Red Sea crossing, Moses sang, “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?  Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?”  What he’s telling Moses in 34:10 is that his ability to do wonders didn’t terminate at the Red Sea.  The wonders he did there are but a foretaste of even more wonderful things to come.

The wonders of God’s work in the past pushes our gaze forward to the even more wonderful things he’ll do in the future.  The wonder of the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus prepare us for the even greater wonder of his return, the wonder of his total conquest of his enemies and the wonder of him bringing us home to a new heavens and new earth.

Why the Obedience?

The grace of the Lord is seen in him remaking the covenant and promising to do even more wonders through his people.  But then grace gives way to commands in verses 11-28.  Our second question is why the obedience?  Why does the Lord expect his people to obey him?

We know this section is focused on obedience because verse 11 begins with, “Observe what I command you this day,” and then what follows are a series of commands, most of which have already been given in chapter 23.  The function of these verses is to give Israel guidelines to live by in the land the Lord is taking them to.

The primary thing the Lord cares about is his people’s allegiance to him.  That’s why he starts this section with several commands and warnings about idolatry (vv. 11-17).

The Lord starts with idolatry because idolatry is what our hearts are most prone to.  The perversion of idolatry is that we look to images for hope instead of accepting our roles as images of the one true God.  Idolatry inverts what we were made for.  We were made to image God; instead we look to images to be our God.

The Lord’s Jealousy

Notice the reason the Lord gives for why we shouldn’t worship any other god in verse 14, “for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”  God forbids idolatry because he’s jealous.

We usually use the word “jealousy” in a different way than the Bible uses it.  We typically use it to describe someone who’s insecure, obsessive, and has unpredictable moments of rage and impulsive emotions.  This isn’t the kind of jealousy God has.

Jealousy in the Bible isn’t the raging mad, suspicious, and irrational husband who abuses his wife verbally, emotionally, and physically when she does something he doesn’t like.  Rather, as one writer describes it, “Jealousy (in the Bible) describes something more like the husband who so loves and cares for his wife and is so devoted to the commitment reflected in the promises they made on their wedding day that he seeks to earnestly draw his wife back to himself should she be flirting with adultery.”[1]

Why should God’s people obey God?  Because God is a jealous God.  His name is Jealous, meaning that, unlike humans who become jealous, God’s jealousy isn’t the result of a mood swing for him.  Jealousy isn’t a mood for God, it’s his essence.  He always cares deeply about his glory among his people.

God’s jealousy, however, is displayed in two different ways in Scripture.  It can either look like a consuming fire or a faithful husband.  In Deuteronomy, Moses tells Isreal to not break covenant with the Lord because he “is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (4:23-24).

But at other times his jealousy looks more like a husband’s loving pursuit of his wife.  In Hosea, God compares his relationship with Israel to a marriage with a prostitute.  He tells Hosea to marry a prostitute (1:2).  After they’re married, she leaves him for other lovers.  But the Lord tells Hosea to go after her, to “allure her” and “speak tenderly to her” (2:14).  So he goes and buys her back and takes her home.  Hosea’s jealousy for his wife sent him after her with cleansing mercy.

Because he’s jealous, he hates their spiritual adultery and goes after them with love and mercy.  If they persist in their adultery, they’re met with his “consuming fire.”

“Jealous with My Jealousy”

An example of this is in Numbers 25.  Israel was doing exactly what the Lord told them not to do in Exodus 34 by worshipping the gods of other nations.  So the Lord tells Moses to have the people who’re guilty impaled and left to die in the sun.

While that’s happening, an Israelite man takes a Midianite woman into his family’s tent in front of Moses and the whole congregation while they’re weeping over what’s happening.  This is brazen perversion and utter madness.  In steps Phinehas, Aaron’s grandson.  He takes his spear and goes into the tent and spears the man and the woman through the belly and the plague stops.

Like Jesus in the temple, Phinehas was consumed with righteous anger.  The Lord said this to Moses, “Phinehas…has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy” (v. 11).  Phinehas was jealous for what the Lord was jealous for, namely, the glory of his name and the purity of his people.

If we’re not careful, we’ll stop here and think, “Okay, I need to be really passionate for the Lord and take a stand and fight injustice and then I’ll really be a true Christian.”  But we have to keep verses 11-28 and verses 1-10 together.  It’s the grace of the Lord that compels the people’s obedience.  The people obey because, like the persistent and gracious husband, the Lord comes after them, the adulterous spouse, and makes things right.

Because he’s jealous for his glory among them, the Lord gives them grace and then expects them to obey.  Grace, then obedience, and all because the Lord’s name is Jealous.

What Keeps Them Together?

The third question we need to ask is, “What keeps grace and obedience together?”  What keeps us balanced in our walk with Christ?  What will fill us with grace and motivate us to obey?  Verses 29-35 show us that it’s only though the glory of the mediator.

Something happens to Moses while he’s on the mountain.  He somehow goes without food and water for forty days (v. 28) and when he comes down his face shines so brightly that the people are afraid of him (v. 30).  Last time he came down the mountain with rage, this time with glory.

This is the only time the shining face and veil of Moses are mentioned in the Old Testament.  What’s going on here?  The text doesn’t tell us why his face shines, but it seems best to conclude that it’s shining as a way of showing Israel that Moses is their mediator.  He’s the one who goes before the Lord for them.  His shining face reflects the glory of God to impress on Israel that Moses is God’s man.  He’s the embodiment of the tabernacle, as God’s presence and glory reflect off of him, his veil like the veil in the Holy Place separating the people from the glory of the Lord.

The Lord’s grace and word have come to his rebellious people through Moses.  His role as mediator in these last several chapters made him truly great, as one commentator describes:

“The main thrust of chapters 32-34 now becomes clear.  It is not so much a story of rebellion as it is a story of God’s forgiveness and Moses’ role in making this happen.  It is in these chapters that Moses’ role as intercessor, as mediator of the covenant, reaches its zenith.  If we wish to point to the episode that makes Moses truly special, that makes him deserving of all the honor, attention, and respect he has received through the ages, it is his shielding an ungrateful people from the end they most certainly deserve, even if it means taking their place and bearing the full weight, horror, and ignominy of God’s anger.  The world will not see the likes of this again for many generations.”[2]

Mediator Moses is who brings them grace, and grace is what motivates them to obey.  So what keeps grace and obedience together?  See the glory of the mediator.

A Greater Mediator

Moses was a great mediator, going to the Lord on behalf of the people time and time again.  But he wasn’t a perfect mediator.  Moses offered to atone for Israel’s sins back in chapter 32, but the Lord rejected his offer because he wasn’t a perfect substitute (Num. 20:12).  Only someone who isn’t guilty can bear the guilt of someone else.

This Someone is of course Jesus Christ.  He had no guilt so he could take our guilt: the not guilty dies for the guilty.  This is why Paul in 2 Corinthians 3 uses this passage in Exodus 34 to talk about how the “old covenant” has been surpassed in glory by the new covenant (v. 10).

Paul’s point is that something good has been replaced by something better.  There was real glory in the old covenant, but it was a covenant of death and condemnation and faded away, just like the glory on Moses’ face after he came down from the mountain.  But Jesus mediates a ministry of righteousness and his covenant has a permanent glory.

Jesus came to free us from death and condemnation and give us the Spirit so that we want to obey God.  Outside of Christ, we want grace but we don’t want to obey.  In Christ, we find grace that frees us to obey.  Outside of Christ, our disobedience deserves death because the Lord is jealous.  In Christ, his obedience is credited to us and we’re set free from antinomianism and legalism, from breaking all the rules or keeping all the rules to cover our shame.  In Jesus, we’re free, and that’s glorious.

A Greater Phinehas

Remember Phinehas?  After he puts his spear through the adulterous couple it says that the plague that was on the people stopped (Num. 25:8).  In that moment, he made atonement for the people’s sin and God’s wrath was stopped (v. 11).

Phinehas is a shadow of Jesus who, seeing the sinfulness of God’s people, ran to the cross to stop the plague.  The difference is that the death that stops the wrath from coming on the people is his own.  Jesus doesn’t kill anyone with a spear – he tells Peter to put his sword away (Matt. 26:52).  Instead, he takes the spear himself, letting sinners thrust him through with thorns, nails, and a spear.  His atonement is effective, so he cries out, “It is finished” (Jn. 19:30).  His payment for sin is so perfect that his tomb is empty three days later.  Jesus rose from the dead victorious so that the whole world will know that Jealous is his name.

Grace-Filled Obedience Starts at the Cross

What keeps grace and obedience together?  Where do we get filled with grace and motivated to obey?  Only at the cross, the place where the Son of God was consumed by the fire of God, the place where our faithful husband came after his unfaithful bride.

Only when you see what God has done for you in Jesus, when you see his jealous love for you on the cross, will you want to live for him.  The balance and symmetry of a grace-filled and obedient life begins when you see the glory of the Mediator.

Do you know his grace and compassion?  Are you obeying his word and commands?  Have you see the glory of the Mediator?

[1]Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2019), 234.

[2]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 588.

A Lot Has Changed, A Lot Hasn’t Changed  

Several interesting things happened in the year 1890.  The Sleeping Beauty premiered as a ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia.  The National American Woman Suffrage Association was founded by Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.  Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh moved to France and produced around seventy paintings in as many days before dying at the age of 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  The University of North Texas and Yosemite National Park were founded.  Charles Spurgeon began the last two years of his life and Winston Churchill was a precocious sixteen-year-old boy in boarding school outside of London.  But, of more importance to us than all these things, our church was founded that year. 

Our church, originally called Renner Baptist Church, was established 134 years ago in 1890.  You may’ve noticed that our new church sign was installed this week, and that underneath our church’s name is “Est. 1890.”     

You may wonder why that’s on the sign, and part of our church logo?  Because it communicates that we’ve been here a while and plan to be here a while.  In a culture that’s looking for permanence, we want to communicate, however subtly, that our church has deep roots in this community. 

A lot has changed in the world and in our church since 1890.  But a lot hasn’t changed either.  The God that the people of Renner Baptist Church gathered to worship is the same God that we gather to worship this morning.  Their God is our God. 

What Kind of God is God? 

But what’s he like?  Who is the God of Renner Baptist Church and Preston Highlands Baptist Church?  What kind of God is God?   

How do you think of God?  How would you describe him?  Maybe you think God is the “Guy up there” or “Man upstairs,” or some vague spiritual power who looks out for you?  Maybe you think God is the totality of all that exists, or the life-force that animates everything?  Maybe you think there are many gods? 

What kind of God is God?  Is God personal or impersonal, knowable or unknowable, relational or distant?  Is God like a grumpy old man or permissive parent?  Is he all love with no justice or all justice with no love?  Is he, like the Quran teaches, the great God above all but at a distance from us?  What kind of God is God?   

Is God Only Love in the New Testament? 

The Bible says, “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8, 16).  But is that just a New Testament idea, after the coming of Jesus Christ, God’s Son?  What about the Old Testament?   

In one of the most important passages in the Old Testament, we learn that the New Testament agrees with the Old Testament.  In Exodus 34:1-9, we learn that God is love.  In this passage, we see God’s love revealed in three ways: in his new tablets (vv. 1-4), his teaching (vv. 5-7), and his treasure (vv. 8-9).  The main point of this passage is that God’s deepest heart overflows with love for people who don’t deserve it. 

Tablets 

In verses 1-4, we see that God is love in the new tablets he tells Moses to make.  Back in chapter 32, when Moses came down the mountain and saw the people dancing around the golden calf, he threw the two original tablets down and broke them (v. 19).   

At the end of verse 1, the Lord reminds Moses that he broke the first tablets so that he understands that the covenant hadn’t just been violated in some way but broken.  Israel hadn’t damaged the covenant; they’d smashed it. 

This means that what the Lord is asking Moses to do here is a surprising display of love.  By telling Moses to make new tablets, he’s saying, “What Israel broke, I’m ready to repair.”  The Lord loves his people so much that he’s ready to restore them and reinstate his covenant with them.   

These new tablets are the “concrete sign” that the Lord had forgiven Israel and was ready to restore the relationship.1  It’s like an employer saying to a previously dismissed employee, “Welcome back to the company.  Let me show you to your work station.”  Or a judge saying to a person who’s served their time, “You’re free to go and resume your former life.”2  

The Lord is saying to Moses, “I’m ready to put the covenant back together so bring some new tablets so I can write out the terms again.” 

Our Responsibility to Change 

The Lord made the tablets and wrote on them the first time (32:16), while the second time around he asks Moses to make the tablets for him to write on.  The lesson here is likely that when the covenant needs to be renewed, and it’ll need to be renewed many times throughout Israel’s history, the people have a responsibility to act.  They can’t just sit back and wait for God to forgive and restore – they have a responsibility to do what must be done to move back into right relationship with the Lord.  They’re the ones who moved, not the Lord, so they need to be the ones who come back to him.  If they want to be in covenant relationship with God, they have to show their commitment to him.  It’s like a coach saying to one of his players, “You can be on the team this year but you have to buy your own uniform this time.”   

A lot of times, when we’re struggling with sin, we sit back and just want God to change us and don’t want to do the hard work of changing ourselves.  We know we belong to the Lord, so we assume he’ll change us if he wants to, and if we don’t change, then it must be the Lord’s fault.  This text illustrates that covenant renewal and the hard-work of life-change go together. 

What kind of God is God?  He’s the kind of God who loves his people so much that he wants to restore his relationship with them even though they’ve rebelled against him.  But he’s not the kind of God who does everything for us.  He loves us so much that he invites us into the glorious and messy process of transformation.   

Teaching 

In verses 5-7, we see that God is love in what he says about himself to Moses, or in his teaching.   

What the Lord teaches Moses, and us, about himself here isn’t ancillary to the Bible, but it’s very heart.  We know this because of how often this text is repeated or echoed elsewhere in the Old Testament (eg. Num. 14:18; Neh. 9:17, 13:22; Ps. 86:5, 15, 103:8, 145:8; Isa. 63:7; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Nahum 1:3).  

What the Lord says here isn’t a passing comment but becomes the way Israel describes their God for generations to come.  The essence of what he says is that his glory is most clearly seen in his goodness. 

Five Aspects of God’s Goodness 

In verses 6-7, the Lord defines his goodness in five ways.3  First, he says that he’s “merciful and gracious.”  “Merciful” meaning that he genuinely cares about us and has an attitude of concern toward us.  “Gracious” meaning he does things for us that we don’t deserve, that he goes beyond what’s expected.   

In his chapter on this passage in Gentle and Lowly, Dane Ortlund points out that these are the first two words out of God’s mouth after proclaiming his name, “the Lord.”  He says, “God does not reveal his glory as, ‘The Lord, the Lord, exacting and precise,’ or, ‘The Lord, the Lord, tolerant and overlooking,’ or, ‘The Lord, the Lord, disappointed and frustrated.’  His highest priority and deepest delight and first reaction – his heart – is merciful and gracious.”4   

The second thing the Lord teaches us about himself is that he’s “slow to anger.”  The Lord is patient with people who don’t deserve patience.  He doesn’t have his finger on the trigger.  Unlike us, he can put up with a lot.   

The Bible elsewhere says that God is “provoked to anger” but it never says he’s “provoked to love.”  Unlike his anger, his love needs no provoking.  It’s always ready to wash over us.  We tend to think of God as the opposite, as ready to pounce in anger and yet stingy with his love.   

The Bible is trying to deconstruct our natural vision of God and show us that God is “slow to anger” and, as the third phrase in verse 6 says, “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”  This is covenant language.  “Steadfast love” is the Hebrew word “hesed” and refers to God’s special love and commitment to the people he’s bonded himself to in an unbreakable covenant.  A better word might be “loyalty” rather than “love,” as the phrase describes the long-term commitment that exists in a covenant relationship.   

He’s “loyal” and “faithful” to people who aren’t, never entertaining the idea of forsaking us or withdrawing from us the way we withdraw from people who hurt us.  And he’s not just like this in some static way.  He says that he “abounds” in this love and loyalty.  His commitment to us never runs dry.  

The fourth thing he teaches us about his goodness is at the beginning of verse 7, “keeping steadfast love for thousands” (or “to the thousandth generation”).  The Lord maintains his covenant loyalty to us indefinitely.  This means there’s no expiration date on the Lord’s commitment to you, that you can’t outrun his goodness or get rid of his grace.  His heart is set on you forever.   

The fifth thing the Lord teaches us is that he “forgives iniquity and transgression and sin” (v. 7).  The Lord forgives evils of all sorts, or as one commentator puts it, “The whole range of human disregard of the Lord may be met with forgiveness.”5 

These five aspects of God’s goodness were given to Israel when they needed them the most.  They’d just rebelled by making the golden calf and the Lord’s anger burned against them (32:10).  But, as Switchfoot said in their song “Dare You to Move, “Forgiveness is right where they fell.” 

What kind of God is God?  “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.”  Is this how you picture God? 

Mercy and Justice 

The last part of verse 7 seems to contradict all that we’ve just seen.  How do the Lord’s goodness and his justice relate? 

Because God is infinitely wise, he knows that when sinful people like us hear about his mercy, our tendency can be to assume that our sins don’t have any consequences.  So the end of verse 7 is the Lord’s way of saying, “I am merciful, but sin has consequences.” 

This verse is hard to interpret, but it at least means that our sin effects people beyond ourselves.  It also shows us that God isn’t a softie.  His grace must not be understood as leniency.  God is the only perfectly fair person in the universe.  He’s not mocked, we reap what we sow (Gal. 6:7).  Around the world and in our families we see how sin is passed down from generation to generation.   

But even in this promise there’s the comfort of God’s love for his people.  Sin is passed down three or four generations, but God’s love is passed down for a thousand generations.  We pass our sins down to our children and grandchildren, but God passes down his love in a way that overwhelms our sins.  His mercy travels further than our mistakes.   

Dark Thoughts of God Need to Die 

This is who God is.  He is just, but his deepest heart overflows with mercy and love.  As the Lord says in Isaiah 54:7-8, “For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you.  In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you.”  

What kind of God is God?  He’s angry for a moment but merciful forever.  Is this how you see him?  Dane Ortlund talks about how hard it is for us to believe this.  He says, 

“The Christian life, from one angle, is the long journey of letting our natural assumption about who God is, over many decades, fall away, being slowly replaced with God’s own insistence on who he is.  This is hard work.  It takes a lot of sermons and a lot of suffering to believe that God’s deepest heart is ‘merciful and gracious, slow to anger.’  The fall in Genesis 3 not only sent us into condemnation and exile.  The fall also entrenched in our minds dark thoughts of God, thoughts that are only dug out over multiple exposures to the gospel over many years.  Perhaps Satan’s greatest victory in your life today is not the sin in which you regularly indulge but the dark thoughts of God’s heart that cause you to go there in the first place and keep you cool toward him in the wake of it.”6 

How do you think about God?  Is he austere and standoffish?  Is he mostly annoyed with you and waiting for you to get your act together?  Does he have low-level frustration with you most of the time?   

Is he like the father who shakes his head in disgust when his kids mess up again or like the father who runs to them when they fall, gently scooping them up in his arms and telling them he’s not going anywhere and loves them no matter what?  Does God delight in you or put up with you? 

Dark thoughts of God will die when we understand who God actually is.  He’s “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”  God’s deepest heart overflows with love for people who don’t deserve it. 

Treasure 

In verses 8-9, we see one more way that God’s love is revealed.  The very end of his prayer in verse 9 is Moses asking that God would “take us for your inheritance.”   

Usually Moses talks about the land as Israel’s inheritance, but here he’s asking that Israel would be the Lord’s inheritance.  He’s not asking the Lord to give Israel their inheritance but that Israel would be his inheritance, or as Ed Clowney says, “the treasure of his love.”7 

This was the goal of the exodus, as we learned back in chapter 19, where the Lord says that he brought Israel out of Egypt to be his “treasured possession among all peoples” (19:5).  The whole earth is like a ring on the Lord’s finger, but Israel is like a jewel in that ring.  As King, he owns the whole earth, but he made Israel his personal stash of treasure.   

This idea informs Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians, when he prays that God would help us see “the riches of (God’s) glorious inheritance in the saints” (1:18).  This isn’t referring to our inheritance (as in 1:11), but God’s.  What is “God’s glorious inheritance”?  It’s “in the saints.”  It’s his people!  In Christ, God makes us his treasured possession.   

Do you think God feels that way about you?  What do you think God calls you?  What name tag do you think he puts on you?  All of us wear name tags, labels on our souls that define us.  These name tags are deep beliefs that others projected on us or we project on ourselves and that we’re usually not consciously aware of.  What’s your go-to name tag?  Failure, stupid, not good enough, incompetent, weak, too sensitive, rejected, alone?  What’s on your name tag?  

God’s Grace in Flesh and Blood 

This passage says that our name tag says, “The Lord’s inheritance, his treasure.”  It shows us that God’s deepest heart overflows with love for people who don’t deserve it.  We see his love in his new tablets, his teaching, and his treasure. 

But the final proof that God is love isn’t found in Exodus, but in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Moses couldn’t see the face of God and live.  But one day God would make it so that anyone could see his face and live.   

It says at the beginning of John’s Gospel, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory…full of grace and truth” (1:14).  In Jesus, we can see what Moses couldn’t.  Moses was told of God’s mercy and grace; Jesus came to show us God’s mercy and grace in flesh and blood. 

A lot has changed since 1890.  But not the deepest heart of God.  His deepest heart is still love for his people.  Jesus proved this once and for all by going to a Roman cross, where God visited all his justice on him who deserved none of it.  

And he did that to prove how much you’re worth to him.  As the song says, “Two wonders here that I confess, my worth and my unworthiness.  My value fixed, my ransom paid, at the cross.”  God cherishes you so much that he gave up himself to have you.  Is this the God you believe in? 

Heaven without God?

There are lots of reasons why people want to go to heaven.  To see loved ones who’ve died, to do fun stuff all the time, to escape pain and sickness and sadness and evil and sin, to experience all the pleasures they can imagine.  Why do you want to go to heaven?

In the fourth century, the African pastor-theologian Augustine proposed this thought experiment in a sermon he preached on Psalm 128.  He says imagine that God appeared to you and said, “Do you want to sin?  All right, go ahead, then: sin.  Do anything that gives you pleasure.  Anything that you love on earth shall be yours…Whatever you want for yourself, you shall possess it.  No one is to oppose you, no one is to say to you, ‘What are you doing?’  No one will say to you, ‘Don’t do that,’  No one will say, ‘Why did you do it?’  All the earthly things you crave shall be yours in abundance.  You shall live to enjoy them not just for a time but always.  But there is just one reservation: you will never see my face.”[1]

Would you take that deal?  Augustine says that those who truly know the Lord groan when they hear those words, “You will never see my face.”  He says that those who know the Lord would rather see the Lord’s face than have “overflowing wealth and be awash in all kinds of temporal goods.”  Those who really fear the Lord would say, “Away with all of it, if only I may see your face.”[2]

The deepest part of us knows that what we want more than anything else is God, that our heart is restless until it rests in him.  Philosopher Peter Kreeft says, “You may not consciously realize it because this is the truth the human race keeps very, very busy hiding twenty-four hours a day by a million diversions…we fill our cities, minds, bellies, wallets, and wombs, (but) we remain unfulfilled in our hearts.”[3]

Would you be content with the Lord’s blessings without the Lord?  If Jesus wasn’t in heaven, would you still want to go there?  These questions expose what our hearts really believe.

We were made to live with God, which is why our hearts long for something so much more than this world offers us.  We try to satiate our thirst with a hundred good things but the thirst is still there, so we keep drinking from broken wells while ignoring the spring of living water.

Moses Isn’t Content

In Exodus 33, Moses isn’t content with the Lord being around but not among the people.  After the people made the golden calf, the Lord said he’d send an angel to lead them to the Promised Land and that he wouldn’t go up among them (33:3).  The Lord wasn’t abandoning them, but he was saying that he’d be at a distance.  He’d be around but not among.

Moses can’t live with the prospect of the Lord being around but not among.  He’d rather be in a desert with the Lord than in a land flowing with milk and honey without him.  So he boldly approaches the throne of grace with more intercession in 33:12-23.

In verses 12-16, Moses asks and in verses 17-23, the Lord answers.  The main point of these verses is that the Lord’s presence is better than the Lord’s blessings.

Moses Asks

In verses 12-16, Moses asks the Lord to be with him and the people.  The context of this prayer is verse 11.  Moses is at the tent of meeting outside the camp meeting with the Lord in a deeply intimate and personal way, “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.”

This isn’t just friends hanging out, however.  Moses is pleading with the Lord for the Lord’s people.  In principle, Moses wants what the people wanted – assurance that he wouldn’t be traveling into the future alone.  But instead of giving into fear and taking matters into his own hands and trusting in false gods, he turns to the true God in honest prayer.

Because of Israel’s idolatry, there’s a big question mark over their future and Moses wants assurance about whether a holy God could live with an unholy people.

Moses does most of the talking in this section, while the Lord patiently listens and gently responds.  He says the Lord hasn’t made known the identity of the angel that will lead them to the promised land (v. 2).  Moses is confused by this because, as he says in verse 12, the Lord knows him by name – a phrase God never uses of anyone else in the Bible, and because he’s found favor, or grace, in his sight, something that is only said of Noah (Gen. 6:8).  Moses wants the Lord to “show him his ways” (v. 13a) or let him know what he’s up to so that he may know the Lord.

But he’s not just concerned about himself.  He also reminds the Lord that Israel is his people, “Consider too that this nation is your people” (v. 13).  Even though they’ve sinned, Moses wants the Lord to have mercy on them because they’re his people.

In verse 14, the Lord briefly responds to Moses, saying literally, “My face will go.”  Moses wondered who was going with him, so what relief he must’ve felt when the Lord said, “I am going with you.”

The Lord says that his personal and intimate presence will go to the Promised Land with Moses, but he doesn’t mention the people.  He ignores the last plea of verse 13.  The “you” in verse 14 is singular.  The Lord is saying that he’ll go with Moses.

But in verses 15-16, Moses is persistent in pleading the cause of Israel.  In verse 15, he associates his future with theirs, using the pronoun “us.”  And in verse 16, he repeats the phrase “I and your people” twice.”  He tells the Lord that his future is bound up in theirs.  It’s like he’s saying, as one commentator says, “If it is just I you plan to go up with, forget it, but if your delivering grace includes your people, then count me in.”  Moses is saying, “They need you much more than they need me.”[4]

Moses even says in verse 16 that the only way Israel can be a holy, or set apart and distinct, nation is if the Lord is with them.  The Lord’s presence is what distinguishes the Lord’s people from every other people on the earth.

What’s Most Important

What makes Israel distinct isn’t the property they’ll have, but the presence of their God.  This means that the people of God don’t put their hope for the good life in building kingdoms on the earth.  What truly matters is whether we’re with the Lord, not whether we’re living in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Earlier this year, Jonathan Leeman did a talk at the Texas Pastors Conference where he argued that the church’s biggest threat politically is being co-opted, or recruited, by the world to fight their battles, that our biggest temptation is having the wrong priorities.  He said we shouldn’t be like Jonah and run away from the culture or like Judas and compromise with the culture, or like Peter who picked up the sword in the Garden of Gethsemane and tried to fight the culture.

As Peter matured in his faith, he realized that we’re sojourners and exiles in the earth (1 Pet. 1:1, 2:11), that our home is heaven, not earth, so we prioritize the church not the state.  Satan tempted Jesus by offering him all the kingdoms of the earth.  Jesus could’ve made a perfect world instantly, but there wouldn’t have been any redemption.  There would’ve been victory but we all would perish.  Jesus understood his priorities.

Our greatest temptation is forgetting our priorities.  I’m not saying that elections and politics aren’t important.  I am saying that the Lord’s presence is more important than everything else.

The Lord Answers

In verses 17-23, the Lord answers Moses’ pleas for his people.  The Lord’s answer is a resounding, “Yes, I’ll do what you’ve asked” (v. 17).  This is confirmation that Israel will get to build the tabernacle and the Lord will live among them.

Moses has had all his questions answered but one.  In verse 13, he asked, “Show me now your ways.”  Moses has been on the mountain and in the pillar of cloud, but he wants to go deeper with God.  So in verse 18, he asks, “Please show me your glory.”  He yearns to know God more fully.  He wants to see the glory of God.

In light of verse 20, it’s likely that Moses wants to see more of God’s “face,” or his essential being.  Moses is seeking the face of the One whom he already knows “face to face.”  This is figurative language expressing the longing he has for intimacy with the Lord.  He doesn’t just want stuff from the Lord’s hand, he wants his face, or who he is himself.

The Glory of God’s Goodness

The Lord’s answer to him in verse 19 is one of the most important verses in the Bible.  We know it’s important because Paul quotes it in Romans 9:15 when he’s defending God’s freedom to chose whoever he wants for salvation.

Moses wants to see the Lord’s glory but what he’ll get is the Lord’s goodness.  Here the Lord’s glory isn’t his majesty and power, but his goodness.  Why does the Lord emphasize the glory of his goodness?

Think about it.  The people he rescued out of slavery, provided for and protected in the wilderness, entered into a covenant relationship with, and gave his wise word to tried to replace him after a few weeks of waiting on Moses.  The Lord’s bride had cheated on him and he’d done nothing to deserve it.  In fact, he’d done nothing but be good to them.  His goodness is why they’re alive.

Moses is in the middle of a “stiff-necked” people, many of whom are spectators rather than participants in seeking the Lord (v. 7).  God wants to reveal the glory of his goodness against the backdrop of Israel’s badness.

This is why he emphasizes his grace and mercy in the last part of verse 19, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”  The Lord is highlighting his willingness to forgive a sinful people and stay with them on their journey home.

But this verse also says something about the very nature of God.  It says that part of his essential nature is to dispense mercy on whoever he wants and that there’s nothing outside of himself constraining him to do so.  The Lord is absolutely free to give his grace to anyone he wants.

Among other things, this means that we don’t get to define who’s deserving of God’s mercy.  God is free to save anyone, anytime, anywhere.

A Hard Truth

This is what Paul is arguing for in Romans 9.  Some accuse God of injustice because he chooses some rather than others (v. 14), but Paul says that God is free to show mercy on whoever he wants (v. 15).  Election, therefore, “depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (v. 16).

This is a hard truth, but it is truth.  God is absolutely free to do what pleases him (Ps. 115:3).  As Thomas Aquinas said, “God is a law unto himself.”[5]  He’s not constrained by anyone or anything.  This is what it means to be God.  It’s his name: “I AM WHO I AM” (Ex. 3:14).

It’s therefore perfectly within his rights to condemn the entire human race because of our sin.  Professor Joel Beeke says it this way: “Goodness does not require God to give the same grace to everyone, for grace is not a matter of debt but a free gift (Rom. 3:24; 4:4; 5:15).  God’s goodness to his creation does not necessitate that he do all within his omnipotent power to save every wicked rebel.  His goodness, eternal mercy, and faithful love are displayed not only in salvation but also in destroying his enemies (Ps. 136:1, 10-22).”[6]

You might say, “If God were really good, he wouldn’t send anyone to hell.”  But what if people go to hell because God is good?

Because God is good, he can’t let evil go, justice must be done.  The reason God is so angry at the sin and evil that’s destroying the human race and the world that he made and loves, is because he’s so full of love and goodness.  If he weren’t, he wouldn’t care.  The more you love, the more angry you get at sin and injustice.

You can’t pit justice against goodness.  Why?  Because it’s love that makes us angry at injustice.  People say they hate a wrathful God, but if there’s no wrath then there’s no love.

The glory of God’s goodness is seen in his free choice to give grace to his rebellious people.  The Lord’s grace is freely given which means it can’t be earned or deserved.  This is good news for anyone who’s sinned against the Lord.

Hiding in the Rock

You might wonder whether you’re one of the ones the Lord has chosen to give his grace?  You may ask, “How can I know if the Lord has been gracious to me?”

The last several verses of this passage help us here (vv. 20-23).  The Lord tells Moses that he can’t see his fullness or he’ll die.  But there’s a place he can go to see him and yet live.  So he puts him in the “cleft of the rock” and covers him with his hand while his fullness passes by.  This allows Moses to see the glory of the Lord without being consumed.

So how can you know if the Lord has been gracious to you?  You can ask yourself whether you’re hiding in the Rock of Jesus Christ.  You know your sin deserves the Lord’s judgement so you run to the Rock of Christ for salvation.  He covers your badness with his goodness, so that when the glory of the Lord passes by, you aren’t consumed.

As the old hymn “He Hideth My Soul” by Fanny Crosby says:

“A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord, a wonderful Savior to me;

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, where rivers of pleasure I see.

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock that shadows a dry, thirsty land;

He hideth my life in the depths of his love, and covers me there with his hand, and covers me there with his hand.”

The way to know if God has given you grace is to see if you’re hiding in the Rock of Jesus Christ.  Are you hidden in the Rock of Jesus?  Or are you hiding behind your achievements, your goodness compared to other people, your religion and rule-keeping?

A Rock with “Rivers of Pleasure”

Crosby helps us know whether we’re in the Rock of Christ or not.  She says that in the cleft of the rock, “rivers of pleasure I see.”  In Jesus, we find that God’s presence is a pleasure.  We understand that it’s better to be with him in the desert than without him in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Would you be content with the Lord’s blessings without the Lord?  If Jesus wasn’t in heaven, would you still want to go there?  Is the Lord’s presence your highest priority?

Those hiding in the Rock understand that out of that Rock flow streams of living water.  They drink deeply from the Lord’s goodness because they know they don’t deserve it, and they know that he’s the best thing they have and the only thing they need.

[1]Augustine, Expositions of the Psalms: 121-150, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, III/20, trans. Maria Boulding, ed. Boniface Ramsey (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2004), 106.

[2]Ibid.

[3]Peter Kreeft, Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 49-50.

[4]Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 566.

[5]Quoted in Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology, Volume 1: Revelation and God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 815.

[6]Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology, Volume 3: Spirit and Salvation (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 393-4.

Recap of Chapter 32

Last week, we saw how Israel’s fear led to control which led to idolatry.  They didn’t know if Moses was coming back and they wanted assurance that they’d have someone to lead them home, so they took their future in their own hands and made a golden calf to “go before” them.

They needed someone or something to center their lives on, to put their hope in for the future.  When things were scary, they decided to “dance around” a golden calf rather than their covenant God.

Behind our idols is our effort to control our lives because we’re afraid.  Idols are downstream from fear.  One way to find your idols is to find what you’re afraid of.  The way to kill your idols is to live in the fear of the Lord.  Then our fears are overcome by a greater fear.  When we live in the fear of the Lord, we don’t have anything else to fear.

Israel’s idolatry understandably made the Lord very upset.  It was a covenant betrayal, a breaking of the marriage they’d just entered, which is why Moses broke the stone tablets.  The Lord was going to wipe them out but decided to spare them after Moses prayed for them.

Chapter 32 ends with an ominous tone (v. 34b).  The prospect of God’s judgment hangs over the people like a dark shadow.  The fallout from their sin will extend into the future.  What will the Lord do with his people?  What will their consequence be going forward?

Sin Hurts Relationships

As we move into chapter 33, we see that the consequence of Israel’s sin is that the Lord’s presence in their lives is hindered.  Their idolatry hindered their nearness to the Lord.  We can summarize this section like this: We were made to live with the Lord, but our sin takes us away from him, and him away from us.  Sin hurts relationships, including our relationship with the Lord.

In 33:1-11, the Lord’s presence with Israel is hindered because of their sin.  In these verses, we’ll see a disastrous word (vv. 1-6) and a distant tent (vv. 7-11).  Then we’ll close by thinking about how we can know if God is among us, or how we can decipher his presence.

A Disastrous Word

In verses 1-6, we see a disastrous word.  The first two and a half verses seem positive.  The Lord tells the people to leave Sinai and head to the Promised Land, “a land flowing with milk and honey” (v. 3a), and that he’ll “drive out” all the nations who currently live there (v. 2).

But if we look closely, we see that something has shifted in how the Lord addresses Israel.  His displeasure is evident in the phrases “the people” rather than “my people” in verse 1, and “an angel” rather than “my angel” in verse 2.  He’s still going to keep his promises, but now there seems to be distance in his posture toward them.

The middle of verse 3 is the real gut-punch: “But I will not go up among you.”  This isn’t an outright rejection of his people, but it is a distancing.  It’s like he’s saying, “I may be around you, but I won’t be among you.”  He’s saying that he won’t allow them to build the tabernacle.

Can you imagine what the people are feeling in this moment?  Imagine someone you love saying to you, “I’ll still be around and I’ll keep my promises, but I don’t want to be close to you.”  Distance in relationships is tragic, especially in covenant relationships.  Many husbands and wives are essentially roommates instead of soulmates.  They’re around each other, but not among each other.  They’re together but there’s no depth, no emotional or spiritual nakedness.

This is crushing news, but it’s the result of their sin.  They craved a direct display of God’s presence to lead them on their journey.  The golden calf was their attempt to capture this presence and make them feel safe.  But, as one commentator says, “As part of their punishment for that folly they would have to live with less than they had before.”[1]

Because they made the calf to represent the Lord’s presence, now the Lord threatens to remove his presence.  What they tried to manufacture on their own was now further removed from them.  As I said last week, our idols aren’t just bad, they’re counterproductive.  Dancing around them instead of the Lord takes us further away from the peace and security we desire.

Grace in Judgment

Before we look at the people’s response in verses 4-6, I want to point out that the threat of limited divine presence is actually an act of mercy from the Lord.  Even in judgment, the Lord is gracious.

What do I mean?  Because God is holy, he cannot tolerate sin in his presence, so the closer a sinful people is to a holy God, the more danger they’ll be in.  This is why he says in verse 3, “I will not go up with you, lest I consume you (or “destroy you”) on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”  God’s presence with sinful Israel could result in their possible annihilation.  By distancing himself from them, he’s giving them a chance.  They may yet have a future with him.

The threat of withholding his presence doesn’t mean he won’t help them get to the Promised Land and doesn’t mean he’ll have no more contact with them.  It does mean that, because of their sin, he can’t have contact with them as things currently stand.  But, as we’ll see next week, rebellion can be overcome through mediation.

Take Off Your Jewelry

In verses 4-6, Israel responds to the Lord’s word.  The threat of the Lord not being among them is a “disastrous word,” leading the people to respond with mourning and repentance.

Verse 4 says the people “mourned” when they heard the Lord’s word of judgment.  But it also says that their mourning was coupled with action, “no one put on his ornaments.”  The Lord told them, “Take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you” (v. 5), so the people responded by “stripping themselves of their ornaments” (v. 6).

It’s not entirely clear what the “ornaments” were, but it’s most likely the jewelry that was left over from the collection for the calf (32:2-3).  Taking them off was a sign of their mourning.

Mourning in the ancient Near East involved changing your appearance (eg. wearing sackcloth) not just your attitude.  Mourners wouldn’t wear anything fancy because that would contradict what they were feeling.  They wanted the outside of their lives to match the inside.  This is why many people today wear black to funerals.

What they’d previously taken off to sin they now take off to mourn their sin, and verse 6 says they kept the ornaments off for the rest of their journey, “from Mount Horeb onward.”

Repentance is Mourning and Action

Moses the author is also showing us how Israel is no better than the Egyptians.  He uses the same verb for “stripped themselves” in verse 6 that he used earlier when he describes how Israel “plundered” the Egyptians (3:22, 12:36).  These ornaments probably came from the Egyptians (12:35), so Moses is saying that, because of their idolatry, Israel deserved to be plundered just like the Egyptians.  The Lord will judge idolatry wherever he finds it.

The Lord tells Israel to take off the stuff they used to betray him, so they did, thus renouncing their sin.  True repentance is both mourning and renouncing your sin, it’s hating it and stopping it.  You haven’t repented just because you feel bad about something.  True repentance is godly grief plus action.  Judas Iscariot felt bad about betraying Jesus (Matt. 27:3), but he never repented, so he perished.  Israel’s mourning (v. 4) points to their repentance, but their obedience in renouncing their sin is why we know they actually repented.

A Distant Tent

The Lord’s presence with Israel is hindered because of their sin.  We’ve seen a disastrous word (vv. 1-6), now we’ll look at the distant tent (vv. 7-11).

This short section is a transition between the golden calf incident and what follows.  The people are under judgment but, as we’ve already seen, grace is starting to come.  This section also provides the context for Moses’ next intercessory prayer (vv. 12-23).

This tent isn’t the tabernacle.  The tabernacle was supposed to be in the center of the camp, but this tent is “outside the camp,” a fact emphasized in verse 7, where Moses says this tent is “outside the camp” twice and also says it’s “far off from the camp.”

Moses emphasizes the separation between the Lord and the people.  The Lord meets with Moses at this tent, away from the people.

In 32:1, the people spoke disparagingly of Moses, saying “this Moses” isn’t coming back.  But now, after the Lord’s judgment and Moses’ intercession for them, they respect him (v. 8).  This “rising up” indicates their admiration and affection for him, and also their contrition.  They know they owe him their lives and they love him for it.

But it also reveals their alienation from the Lord.  Moses is meeting with the Lord and they’re not.  The pillar of cloud in verses 9-10 indicates that the Lord is still with Israel, kind of, to a degree, somewhat removed.  He’s not in the center of the camp, but outside.  He’s around but not among.  The Lord hasn’t given up on them, but there’s separation and estrangement.  Because of their idolatry, the Lord has put some distance between himself and his people.

Verse 11 says that the Lord would speak with Moses “face to face.”  This isn’t to be understood literally, but as an idiom expressing intimacy.  What the Lord says 33:20 isn’t a contradiction.  God’s “face” refers to the essence and fullness of his personal glory, and no one can see that on this side of glory without dying (vv. 21-23).

Verse 11 shows us that God’s grace is on the move.  Israel has betrayed their God, but God continues to speak to his friend Moses on their behalf.

This tent, just like God distancing himself from his sinful people, is a sign of grace.  The people have nearly driven the Lord to the point of no return.  The Lord threatened to separate.  The tabernacle doesn’t seem like it’s going to be built.  Moses pitches an alternate tabernacle where at least he can have access to the Lord.  The cloud goes down to Moses alone while the people watch from home.  And Joshua guards the tent to prevent the people from profaning it too.

But the temporary tent and the meetings with Moses signal that God isn’t entirely done with Israel.  This temporary tent will soon give way to the splendor of the tabernacle and the glory cloud will descend over and guide the whole camp.  There was rebellion and judgment, but more mercy through mediation is coming.

Deciphering His Presence

We’ve seen that Israel’s sin hindered the Lord’s presence in their lives.  Their idolatry hindered their nearness to the Lord.  We were made to live with the Lord, but our sin takes us away from him, and him away from us.

Some people in churches are around God but not among God, not with him.  How can we know if we’re around but not among the Lord, or if he’s around but not among us?  What should we look for to decipher whether his presence is with us?  How do you know if God is with you?

First, people with the Lord mourn and renounce their sin.  When the Lord called Israel to take off their ornaments and mourn their sin, they obeyed, and for the long haul (v. 6).  People who’re among the Lord can’t bear the separation their sin creates.  They know he won’t give up on them, but they also know that they must keep fighting and praying and confessing their sin to him.

Second, people with the Lord will do whatever it takes to be near him.  Verse 7, “And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp.”  Those who want to be with the Lord will go to where he is.  They won’t be content to watch other people experience his presence while they keep their distance (“at their tent door,” vv. 8, 10).  They’ll go to him even if the people around them aren’t.  Their relationship with God is active and real.  They’re participants, not spectators.  They’re not content to watch other people sing and pray and serve and give.  They jump in and seek the Lord.

Third, people with the Lord have tasted what Moses had in verse 11 and know that more is coming.  They have an intimate friendship with the Lord, but they long for the day when they’ll see the Lord fully.  As Paul says, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12).

Those with the Lord have a real and growing intimacy with the Lord, but they understand that their vision is imperfect, so they long for better and clearer sight.  They long to see the face of God.

“They Will See His Face”

We were made to see the face of God, to live with him and him with us, to be with him not around him.  Our sin has taken us away from God, but Jesus came to bring us back to him, to show us his face.  He was cast out so we could be brought in.  The Father turned his face away from the Son so that he could turn his face toward us.

When you’re honest about your sin and your faith becomes active participation rather than watching others, you’ll start to see the face of God through faith.  And one day your faith will become sight, as John says at the end of Revelation, “They will see his face” (22:4).

Do you know the feeling of seeing someone you love after you’ve been apart for a while?  The feeling of a longing fulfilled.  The feeling of reunion after separation.  The feeling of home after being away.  This is what it’ll feel like to see God’s face.  This is the relief we long for and will have, but only if we seek his face today.

[1]Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, The New American Commentary, vol. 2 (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2006), 691, emphasis his.

Genesis 3 All Over Again

The narrative of Exodus slowed down in chapter 19 when Isreal arrived at Mount Sinai.  There the Lord gave them the law, or the terms of his covenant with them (chs. 20-23), and then he ratified the covenant with blood (ch. 24).  After this ratification ceremony, Moses was called back up the mountain to meet with the Lord and was given the instructions for the tabernacle and the priests (chs. 25-31).

At this point in the story, the mood is hopeful and optimistic.  The Lord has rescued his people out of slavery, brought them to himself and given them his word and is in the process of giving them a way to meet with him regularly.  The Lord created a nation to live with him and represent him in the world.  Israel would be a new Eden, or place where God lived and where his blessing flowed out to the world.

But when we come to Exodus 32, it’s like Genesis 3 happens all over again.  The Garden of Israel is infiltrated with evil and sin.  Where there was harmony, now there’s a mess.  Where there was rest, now there’s confusion.  Where there was faith, now there’s idolatry.

What happened?  Put simply, Israel’s fear leads them into idolatry, leads them to take control instead of trust the Lord.  And when they take control, idolatry is the result.  They wondered if their leader Moses would return and wanted assurance that they would be okay going forward.  But their fear, instead of giving them the assurance they wanted, created a desire for control that resulted in idolatry and almost ended up in their destruction.

Their fear led to control which led to idolatry.  This is a pattern at work in our hearts as well, and we’ll talk about it more at the end.  But first, let’s look at Israel’s sin (vv. 1-10), Moses’ response (vv. 11-29), the Lord’s response (vv. 30-35), and then ask, “What about us?”

Israel’s Sin

First, in verses 1-10, we see Israel’s sin.  Back in chapter 24, the Lord told Moses to come back up the mountain so he could give him the stone tablets with the law on them (v. 12).  Moses told the elders that Aaron and Hur would be there to help resolve any problems that come up while he was away (v. 14).  Then he went up into the glory cloud and was there for 40 days and nights.

During that time, the people grew impatient, but their impatience was the result of fear (32:1).  The people were afraid Moses wasn’t coming back and they didn’t know what to do without him.  They assume he’s the one who brought them out of Egypt, so with him gone, how are they going to make it?  They’re afraid that they don’t have anyone to “go before” them.

Their leader is gone and they’re afraid that they’ll have no one to lead them home, and in their fear they take their future in their own hands.  They want assurance that they’ll be okay, so instead of trusting the Lord who’s redeemed them, they take control of the situation.  Fear leads them to take control, and when they take control, idolatry is the result.

The irony is that they forfeit the very thing they want.  They want assurance that the Lord is with them, but their fear-driven impatience leads them to forsake the Lord who wants to be near them.  Their idolatry isn’t just bad, it’s counterproductive.

In the impatience that fear often creates, they created something that they thought would relieve their fears and solve their problems.  But by taking control instead of trusting the Lord, they broke the first two commandments.  They’d just promised obedience (24:3, 7), but after a few weeks of waiting they left the God they said they loved.

The Lord has been talking to Moses on the mountain but he didn’t miss anything happening down below.  Verses 7-10 are his response to Israel’s sin.  The Lord is furious at what they’ve done.  He is hot with anger and says he wants to “consume them” and start over with Moses (v. 10).  At this point, Israel’s future is far scarier because of their sin than was their bondage in Egypt.  It’s one thing if Pharaoh wants to destroy you.  It’s an altogether worse thing if God wants to destroy you.

What will Moses do?  Will he take God up on his offer?  Will he take his future and run?

Moses’ Response

In verses 11-29, we see Moses’ response.  It’s a two-fold response.  First, he responds with mercy and intercession (vv. 11-14).  But then, after he sees for himself what the people are doing, he responds with anger (vv. 15-29).

Moses’ intercession is in verses 11-14.  He doesn’t accept God’s request – he doesn’t leave God alone (v. 10).  He speaks up on behalf of the people, “imploring” the Lord to have mercy on them (v. 12b).

In his prayer, Moses appeals to God’s reasonableness – he’s just saved Israel, why would he kill them now (v. 11)?  He appeals to God’s reputation, saying, “If you kill Israel, the Egyptians will think you’re evil” (v. 12).  And he appeals to God’s promises (v. 13).  The Lord personally swore to multiply Abraham’s descendants and give them a land.

Do you see how Moses is praying here?  He grounds his requests in the Lord’s integrity and worldwide purposes, not in Israel’s goodness.  He grounds his plea for Israel in the Lord himself.  One commentator put it this way, “Rather than defending the people before the Lord, Moses defends the Lord before the Lord.”[1]

Moses’s prayer makes it clear that what’s at stake in the Lord’s response to Israel’s sin is the Lord’s name.  And the Lord loves prayers centered on the glory of his name.  It’s on these grounds that the Lord decides to spare Israel (v. 14).

The Power of Prayer

Moses teaches us an important lesson here: God-centered prayers change things.  I don’t have time to address how God’s sovereignty and prayer relate.  But I will say that the Bible makes it crystal clear that the prayers of God’s people change things in the world.

There are some things that will not happen unless we pray.  Paul believes he’ll be delivered “through” the prayers of the Philippian church (1:19).  Prayer, as Alec Motyer says, “is one of the ‘laws of God’ by which he runs the world.”[2]

Motyer says that true prayer does not seek glory for itself, matches the known will of God, asks on the basis of what God has already done, is concerned for the Lord’s name, and rests on the basis of God’s promises.[3]

One of the great mysteries of our faith is that God accomplishes his purposes through our prayers.  He chooses to include us in his work of saving the world.  This is one reason why we devote so much time to prayer in our services, and why we should all be praying constantly.

Moses’ Anger

Moses’ first response to the news of Israel’s sin is mercy and intercession.  But after he goes down the mountain and sees for himself what they’re doing, his next response is anger (vv. 15-29).

Moses came down the mountain with the two “tablets of the testimony,” symbolizing the completed covenant.  The covenant documents have been prepared by the covenant giver.  They’re “the work of God” and “the writing was the writing of God” (v. 16).  The covenant is intact and won’t be broken on God’s side.

But verse 19 says that when Moses saw the people dancing around the calf, he was so furious that he threw the tablets down and broke them.  This symbolizes the breaking of the covenant, but it was Israel who broke the covenant, not the Lord.

Verse 20 says that Moses burned the golden calf, ground it to powder, and made the people drink it.  Why?  To show them that their false God was as good as urine and excrement.

In verses 21-24, Moses calls Aaron to account.  Moses left him in charge and so he’s responsible for what happens, even if it’s not all his fault.

Leaders are responsible for those they lead, whether in Old Testament Israel or in the New Testament church.  As the writer of Hebrews says, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account” (13:17).  Or James, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (3:1).

Aaron basically says, “The people made me do it and the calf created itself.”  He minimizes his role and makes excuses instead of owning his actions.

When you wrong someone, do you apologize without excuses?  It’s always best to simply say, “What I did was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

In verse 26, Moses issues a public call for commitment.  This reminds us what Elijah said to Israel several hundred years later on Mount Carmel: “How long will you go limping between two different opinions?  If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kgs. 18:21).  There’s no coercion or threat.  It’s an invitation to follow the Lord alone.

The silence is deafening when Moses calls out.  Most people don’t move.  The same thing happened to Elijah: “The people did not answer him a word” (v. 21).

The slaughter could have been avoided if the people would’ve responded to the call.  But, except for the Levites, no one responded.  This is an intensification of the apostacy, revealing deep levels of disloyalty to the Lord throughout the community.

The result is that 3,000 people are killed (vv. 27-28).  This goes against our modern sensibilities, but the entire future of Israel was at stake.  Their radical sin called for a radical response.

Moses responded to Israel’s sin with mercy and judgment.  He interceded for them and yet burned with anger over their sin.  Like the Lord, Moses was both Judge and Lover of his people.

The Lord’s Response

In verses 30-35, we see the Lord’s response.  The Lord spared Israel, most of them anyways, from destruction, but Moses understands that the relationship still needs to be reconciled, that their sin still needs to be forgiven.  The killing of 3,000 men wasn’t enough to make things right.

So Moses intercedes for the people again, offering to give his life for the sake of the people (v. 32).  Like Paul, he’s willing to be cut off from the Lord so his people can live (Rom. 9:3).  Unlike Aaron, Moses assumes ultimate responsibility as a leader.  He asserts his solidarity with Israel, asks for their forgiveness and offers to take their fate so that they can be forgiven.

But verses 33-34 say that the Lord actually denied Moses’ request!  The Lord says he’ll punish the guilty.  Moses’ intercession for Israel was effective in verses 11-13, but not here.  God does use prayer to change things, but prayer is no guarantee that he’ll do things the way we want.

Israel will get to live, but they won’t be forgiven for what they’ve done, at least not yet.  Moses is the leader of the people, but he can’t make atonement for sin.  Only the priest can do that, and only in the prescribed way.  Moses wants his people to be forgiven, but he doesn’t have the ability to make atonement for their sins.

Verse 34 ends with an ominous tone.  The prospect of God’s judgment will hang over the people like a dark shadow.  The fallout from their sin will extend into the future, not to mention more consequences in the present (v. 35).  Idolatry has consequences.

What will happen to them going forward?  If Moses can’t save them, who will?  If he can’t secure forgiveness for them, can they be forgiven?

As we’ll see in chapter 34, the Lord isn’t done with Israel.  They’ve broken his covenant, but he’ll restore it.  They don’t deserve his goodness, but because he’s faithful to his word, he’ll be good to them anyways.

What About Us?

Fourth, and finally, let’s ask what all this means for us.  The Israelites were afraid that Moses was gone and they had no one to lead them into the Promised Land.  This fear led them to take their future in their own hands, which resulted in idolatry.

They were afraid and wanted assurance that they’d be okay.  They needed someone or something to dance around, to center their lives on, to put their hope for the future.  When things were scary, they decided to “dance around” a golden calf rather than their covenant God.

Like Israel, it’s easy for us to feel afraid when we don’t understand what’s happening.  Fear is an understandable response to scary things.  What we do with our fear is what’s important.  We can either name it in ways that lead to faith and wisdom, or let it lead us into anxiety and control.

Left unchecked, control and anxiety often lead to idolatry, or putting our hope and trust in anything but the Lord.  We were made to “dance around” the Lord, to center our lives and bank our future on him.  But fear will often move us to put our hope on things less than God.

For example, we long for meaning in the world but instead of finding it in the Lord, we build images.  We want to appear successful, wealthy, or smart so we talk in ways that impress others and flaunt the things we have.  We want to appear godly and dignified, so we manage our image by never confessing sins or admitting weaknesses.

We long for an identity in the world, for a name and reputation, but instead of finding it in the Lord, we craft images of ourselves and our lives that we hope will quiet the ache of loneliness in our hearts by causing other people to notice us.  We want our career or kids or portfolio or skills to make us stand out and make a name for ourselves.

What Are Your Idols?

We “dance around” many things besides the Lord, desperately wanting them to lead us to the Promised Land, to give us the assurance that we’re okay and that we’ll be okay.  What are you “dancing around”, or banking your future on?  It could be any number of good things, things like finding a spouse, having kids, being a homemaker, building a career, retiring early, serving in the church, political parties or politicians.

Our problem, as one writer says, is that “we never learn that false gods never fail to fail.”[4]  Everything we look to for ultimate hope and meaning that’s not the Lord will fail to give us what we’re looking for and will leave us frustrated and empty.  Our idols aren’t just bad, they’re counterproductive.

Identifying our idols is hard work.  They’re not usually obvious like the golden calf.  Jonathan Leeman, in his book on faith and politics How the Nations Rage, helps us here.  He says, “If you keep asking a person ‘why,’ eventually you will reach a backstop – something with nothing behind it and that doesn’t move.  Here you find that person’s gods.  Our gods are the backstop or foundation for all our thinking, longing, and acting.  Our gods are whatever we cannot imagine living without, whatever we most love, whatever we most trust, rely on, and believe in, and whatever is our final refuge.”[5]

What are your idols?  What golden calves are you dancing around, hoping that they’ll lead you into the Promised Land of life and rest and joy and security?

Idols Downstream from Fear

This passage shows us that behind our idols is our effort to control our lives and secure our future because we’re afraid.  Idols are downstream from fear.  So one way to find your idols is to think about what you’re afraid of.

This means that the way we crush our idols into powder is by addressing our fears – by naming them and taking them to the Lord and trusting him with them.  This is what the Bible calls “the fear of the Lord.”  Our fears are only overcome by a greater fear.

This is why “the fear of the Lord” is so central in the Bible.  It’s the beginning of wisdom (Pro. 9:10) because when we understand that the Lord is above and over everything and that he’s good, we learn to trust him.  When we live in the fear of the Lord we don’t have to fear anything else.

Listen to how David prays in Psalm 34: “I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears…The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.  Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!  Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!  Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!” (vv. 4, 7-9)

When we live in the fear of the Lord, we’ll have nothing else to fear.  Fear and control and idolatry are replaced by faith and surrender to the One who died for all our idolatry.

[1]W. Ross Blackburn, The God Who Makes Himself Known: The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus, New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 172-3, emphasis his.

[2]J. A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2005), 303.

[3]Ibid., 303-4.

[4]Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006), 169.

[5]Jonathan Leeman, How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2018), 24.

Alone Together

Last week I talked about how we all have a longing to live with God in paradise, that we were made to live with God on the earth.

We were also made to live with other people.  God created us to live in community with him and with others.  We were made for deep connection and growing and authentic friendships with other people.  This is why the loneliness epidemic is so pronounced in our culture right now.

There are lots of reasons for this, from the breakdown of the traditional family to expressive individualism to the ubiquity of screens.  Sherry Turkle, a sociologist at MIT, wrote a book several years ago called Alone Together where she argues that our technologies give us the false impression that we’re together when we’re not.

She talks about showing up to teach at MIT in the 1980’s when all the engineers were raving about computers and artificial intelligence.  She says, “While my computer science colleagues were immersed in getting computers to do ingenious things, I had other concerns.  How were computers changing us as people?  My colleagues often objected, insisting that computers were ‘just tools.’  But I was certain that the ‘just’ in that sentence was deceiving.  We are shaped by our tools.  And now, the computer, a machine on the border of becoming a mind, was changing and shaping us.”[1]

She talks about how our overworked and overscheduled lives make connecting through technology preferable.  We prefer to text instead of calling or calling instead of having coffee.  She says, “Now we look to the network to defend us against loneliness even as we use it to control the intensity of our connections.  Technology makes it easy to communicate when we wish and to disengage at will.”[2]

Of course, technology isn’t bad in itself.  But the way we’re using it shows us that we’re made to connect with people.  We long to have someone sit across from us and take an interest in our lives, to be curious about us, to delight in us, not for what we do, but for who we are.

A Priesthood that Needed Priests

We need people to help us be who God wants us to be.  We need a priesthood, or a people who’ll help us follow God.  But we also need a priest, someone to bring us into God’s presence.

In Exodus 28-29, the Lord provides his people with a priesthood and a priest.  In these chapters, we’ll consider these questions: Who are the priests?  What do they do?  And where are they now?  The main point of this message is that we need a priesthood and are a priesthood, and that we need a priest and have a priest.

Who are the Priests?

First, who are the priests?  The priests were Aaron and his sons (28:1), who were properly clothed (v. 2), and prepared to serve (29:1).  Chapter 28 are the Lord’s instructions to Moses about what Aaron as High Priest must wear.  Chapter 29 are the Lord’s instructions to Moses about how to set Aaron and his sons apart for service.

The Ephod

Chapter 28 says that the priests must be properly clothed.  Verse 4 mentions six things that Aaron should wear, then in verses 6-43 the Lord elaborates on what each item should look like.

The ephod is discussed in verses 6-14.  The ephod was an ornate apron-like garment that went over the “coat of checker work” and under the breastpiece.  It was held together by two shoulder pieces and a waistband (vv. 7-8).  Each shoulder piece had an onyx stone with six of Israel’s tribes inscribed on it.  They were for the Lord’s remembrance (v. 12), not because he easily forgets names, but to illustrate that he hasn’t forgotten his covenant with them.

The language of verse 12 suggests that Aaron “bearing the names before the Lord” means that he’s praying for them.  This is priestly intercession, “Lord, remember Reuben, remember Levi, remember Judah.  They are your covenant people.”  Do you remember the Lord’s people in your prayers?  Use the church directory to help you pray regularly for the church.  Husbands, are you consistently praying for and with your wife and children?  The priests are pray-ers.

The Breastpiece

The next item is the breastpiece (vv. 15-30).  This is probably the most important item because of how much space is given to it (twice as many words as the ephod).  It was a folded piece of fabric about nine inches square with four rows of three stones, each with a tribe of Israel engraved on it (vv. 16-20).

It was worn over the chest or heart and was a pouch (verse 16, “doubled”) that held the Urim and Thummin (v. 30).  This is the first of only seven references to them in the Bible.  It’s not clear exactly what they were, but later we learn that Joshua was to “stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgement of the Urim before the Lord” (Num. 27:21).  It appears that they were used to discern the will of God in specific situations.  This is why the breastpiece is called “the breastpiece of judgment,” or “breastpiece for making decisions” (NIV).

The Robe

The next item is the robe (vv. 31-35).  It was blue and worn under the ephod.  It had pomegranates and bells on the bottom (v. 33), something you could see and something you could hear.  But who would hear the bells?  It says in verse 35 that they would be heard when he enters and exist the Holy Place “so that he does not die.”

The bells weren’t to alert the Lord that someone was coming in, but rather emphasize the danger of approaching the Lord in an unauthorized way.  Doing so results in death.  It’s like hikers who use bear bells when hiking in bear country.  Surprising a Grizzly Bear, especially a mother with her cubs, would be deadly.  The priests must not enter the Lord’s presence haphazardly.

Turban, Tunic, and Sash

The next three items are in verses 36-39.  There’s a turban made out of linen with a golden plate that says “Holy to the Lord” on it (v. 36).  Verse 38 says that it signifies that Aaron will bear the guilt for anyone who offered something to the Lord in an unworthy manner.  He can bear their guilt because he’s “Holy to the Lord.”  Only someone holy can bear the guilt of others.

There was a long linen tunic worn underneath the robe and ephod and an embroidered sash holding everything together (v. 39).

Aaron’s sons, the other priests, would only have tunics, sashes, and caps (v. 40).  Their uniforms were less ornate but had the same purpose, “for glory and for beauty” (v. 40).

Then in verses 42-43, Moses is told to make them undergarments.  This reduced their risk of exposure as they ministered in God’s presence and reminds us of Adam and Eve being clothed after the Fall.

It seems that everything on the priest’s body was covered except his feet, suggesting that the priests ministered in the tabernacle barefoot.  Moses, and later Joshua, were told to remove their shoes when they were in the Lord’s presence.  Nothing unclean can come into God’s presence.

Prepared to Serve

The Lord wanted a priesthood who was properly clothed (ch. 28).  But he also wanted them to be prepared to serve (ch. 29).  The priests must be “consecrated” so that “they may serve the Lord as priests” (v. 1).  “Consecrate” means to set apart or dedicate something or someone for a specific purpose.  The priests were set apart to serve.

Washing with Water

There are a few things worth noting in this chapter.  First, washing them with water wasn’t because they were dirty, but is rather an image of moral cleansing (v. 4).  This is what David means in Psalm 51 when he says, “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!…Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow” (vv. 2, 7).

The New Testament picks up on this imagery, saying that believers have been “washed…in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11), are saved “by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Tit. 3:5), and have “hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:22).

In Jesus, our dirty souls have been cleaned by the water of his Spirit.  Just like the priests, we can’t wash ourselves.  We have to be washed by someone else.  Friend, if you’re trying to get back to God by cleaning your life up, you’ll never get all the dirt off.  Jesus’ Spirit is the only water that can clean your soul.

Pattern of Offerings

Second, there is a pattern to notice in the offerings.  The first offering is the bull in verses 10-14.  It’s a “sin offering” (v. 14).  Aaron and his sons were to lay their hands on the head of the bull before they kill it (v. 10), symbolizing the transferring of their guilt to the bull.  He’ll later do the same thing for the whole nation on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16).  The one who the Lord will use to purify his people must himself be purified.

The bull’s flesh was to be burnt outside the camp (v. 14), as it was associated with sin and impurity.  This is why Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem (Heb. 13:11-12).

Then the first ram is sacrificed as a burnt offering (vv. 15-18).  The entire ram was to be burned on the altar (v. 18), a total consumption signifying total dedication.

Then the second ram is sacrificed as a fellowship offering (vv. 19-34).  This ram was for the priest’s ordination (v. 22) and was to be eaten by Aaron and his sons (vv. 31-33).

This pattern of forgiveness of sins (sin offering), dedication to the Lord (burnt offering), and fellowship with the Lord (fellowship offering) is found in other sacrifice sequences (eg. Lev. 16), and it forms the pattern for the Christian life (Heb. 10:19-25).

I love how one commentator summarizes this section: “The bottom line in all of this lengthy ordination ritual, much of which will seem strange to us, is this: before the priest can minister to the people, the Lord must first minister to the priest.”[3]  You can’t give people what you don’t have.

Daily Ministry

And third, the ministry of the priests is mostly mundane.  The first thirty-seven verses of this chapter focus on the special days of the priest’s ordination.  But what about all the other days, the ordinary days with no celebrations?

The last several verses say that there’s a daily offering of a lamb in the morning and lamb in the evening (vv. 38-39).  These two offerings parallel the two times that the lampstand is tended (27:20-21) and the two times that incense is burned (30:7-8).  Every morning and every evening, the priests had to tend the lamps, burn the incense, and offer the lambs.

Most of their ministry is daily and routine, not special and spectacular.  It’s easy to get excited about the big, special days or events on the Christian calendar.  But it’s in the ordinary and daily ministry that the Lord promises to meet his people (vv. 42-43).  This is where God makes us holy and shows us his glory.  This is when we remember who God is and what he’s done (vv. 45-46).

Do you only offer yourself to the Lord on special occasions?  Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9:23).  The Christian life is mostly mundane days following Jesus in ordinary ways.

Who are the priests?  They were Aaron and his sons who were properly clothed and prepared to serve.

What Do the Priests Do?

Second, what do the priests do?  There are two ways to answer this.  One is to say that Israel needed the priests to go into the Lord’s presence for them.  Another way to answer this is to say that the priests advance the story of God’s work on the earth.

On the micro level, God gave Israel priests so that they could go into his presence on their behalf and make atonement for their sins.  The Israelites were sinners and the Lord is holy.  The priests represented the people, taking their names on their hearts into the presence of God.  The priests brought the people to God.

On the macro level, through the priesthood, God is advancing his plan to redeem the world.  God created the cosmos as the house where he’d live with humanity.  His plan was and is that humans would live with him and serve him on the earth.  This plan starts in the Garden of Eden, moves through Israel, then to Jesus, then the church, then the New Heavens and New Earth.

The priesthood points back to the Garden of Eden and forward to the New Jerusalem.  The first priest was Adam.  The Garden of Eden was the first “tabernacle,” or place where God met with man, and Adam was the first priest who served in God’s presence.

When God brought Israel out of Egypt to Mount Sinai, he calls them a “kingdom of priests” (Ex. 19:6).  The whole nation would be God’s representatives on the earth.

But because they were sinners, they needed a priest to go into God’s presence for them, so God gives them Aaron and his sons, and later the Levites (Num. 1:50, 3:5ff), to serve as priests on behalf of Israel.

The problem was that Israel’s priests were sinners just like Israel.  It was Aaron who allowed the golden calf incident to happen (Ex. 32)!  The priests were holy rebels.  God’s people needed better priests.  They needed a pure priest, an obedient priest.

Jesus the Better Priest

And so God provided one in Jesus.  The writer of Hebrews makes this clear:

“We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God” (4:14).

“The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but (Jesus) holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever” (7:23-24)

“It is indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.  He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once and for all when he offered up himself” (7:26-27).

“We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man” (8:1-2).

“When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (9:11-12).

“Since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (10:21-22).

The beauty and glory of Aaron’s priesthood points to an even better beauty and glory in Jesus.  Jesus’ perfect life is more beautiful than the ephod and breastpiece and robe.  And his work is better than theirs, since it’s built on “better promises” (Heb. 8:6).

Where Are the Priests Now?

Third, where are the priests now?  They’re not in the Catholic Church and they’re not the pastors and elders in churches.  The New Testament says that everyone who trusts in Jesus is a priest!  But in what sense?  In a least two ways.

First, the church is a priesthood for the world.  This is what Peter means when he says to Christians, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).  Our priesthood is for proclamation.  We’re set apart so that we can tell others how to be set apart.  The church is God’s priesthood for the salvation and blessing of the nations.

And second, God’s people will be priests “to God” in heaven.  John says, “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever” (Rev. 1:5b-6).  And the elders before the throne cry out, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (5:9-10).

John is saying that our priesthood is before God on the new earth forever.  In heaven, we’ll serve him and minister in his presence as a priesthood.

So which is it: are we priests for this world or priests for the next world?  The answer is both.  Followers of Jesus are brought into the presence of God and then sent out into the world to mediate his presence to the nations and we’ll forever represent God and be in his presence in heaven.

As followers of Jesus, we currently have access into the Holy of Holies, so we go in and enjoy God’s presence, we delight in the Lord daily, we love the law of the Lord and pray for the people of God.

But then we go out to serve the Lord in our families, schools, jobs, neighborhoods, and to the nations.  We bring the Lord out of the tabernacle to people who need him.  We go out with courage because we’re clothed with Jesus’ righteousness and filled with his Spirit.  We’re God’s priesthood, properly clothed and prepared to serve.

And we persevere, or “hold fast our confession,” because we don’t “have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:14-15).  We can keep going for Jesus because he kept going for us.

The Priest Became the Sacrifice

Jesus is different than all other priests.  He’s not morally compromised.  He doesn’t have to keep offering sacrifices.  Aaron was clothed for his people.  Jesus was unclothed for his people.  Aaron had to make sacrifices to be a priest.  Jesus is the priest who became the sacrifice.

We need a priesthood because God made us for community, and we are a priesthood because God wants to bless the world through us.  But we need a priest because we’re sinners, and we have a priest who never sinned.

We need a priesthood and are a priesthood; we need a priest and have a priest.  Do you have him?  Are you connecting to other believers?  Are you living out his calling on your life?

[1]Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, rev. ed. (New York: Basic Books: 2017), x.

[2]Ibid., 13.

[3]Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 502-3.